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LIBRARY 

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EDITED  BY  JOHN  MORLEY 


GEAY 


I  •    •         •       •  , 

•  •        •     •• 

•  •      •  •••   •    « 


GRAY 


EDMUND    GOSSE,  M.A. 

CLARK   LECTURER    IN   ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AT  TRINITY 
OOLLEOE,    CAMBRIDGE 


HontJon 
MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Limited 

NEW  YORK :  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1906 


The  Right  of  Translation  and  Reproduction  is  Reserved 


First  Edition  1882 
New  Edition  1889,  1902,  1906 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


As  a  biographical  study,  this  little  volume  differs  in  one 
important  respect  from  its  predecessors  in  this  series. 
Expansion,  instead  of  compression,  has  had  to  be  my 
method  in  treating  the  existing  lives  of  Gray.  Of  these, 
none  have  hitherto  been  published  except  in  connexion 
with  some  part  of  his  works,  and  none  has  attempted  to 
go  at  all  into  detail.  Mitford's,  which  is  the  fullest,  would 
occupy,  in  its  purely  biographical  section,  not  more  than 
thirty  of  these  pages. 

The  materials  I  have  used  are  chiefly  taken  from  the 
following  sources : — 

I.  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Gray,  edited  by  Mason  in 
1775.  This  work  consists  of  a  very  meagre  thread  of 
biography  connecting  a  collection  of  letters,  which  would 
be  more  valuable,  if  Mason  had  not  tampered  with  them, 
altering,  omitting,  and  re-dating  at  his  own  free  will. 

II.  Mitford's  Life  of  Thomas  Gray,  prefixed  to  the 
1814  edition  of  the  Poems.  This  is  very  valuable  so  far 
as  it  goes.  The  Rev.  John  Mitford  was  a  young  clergyman 
who  was  born  ten  years  after  the  death  of  Gray,  and 
who  made  it  the  business  of  his  life  to  collect  from  such 
survivors  as  remembered  Gray  all  the  documents  and 
anecdotes  that  he  could  secure.  This  is  the  life  which 
was  altered  and  enlarged,  to  be  prefixed  to  the  Eton  Gray, 
in  1845. 


vi  PREFATORY  NOTE. 

III.  Mitford's  Edition  of  the  Works  of  Gray,  published 
in  4  vols.,  in  1836.  This  contained  the  genuine  text  of 
most  of  the  letters  printed  by  Mason,  and  a  large  number 
which  now  saw  the  light  for  the  first  time,  addressed  to 
Wharton,  Chute,  Nicholls,  and  others. 

IV.  Correspondence  and  Keminiscences  of  the  Rev. 
Norton  Nicholls,  edited  by  Mitford,  in  1843. 

V.  The  Correspondence  of  Gray  and  Mason,  to  which 
are  added  other  letters,  not  before  printed,  an  exceedingly 
valuable  collection,  not  widely  enough  known,  which  was 
published  by  Mitford  in  1853. 

VI.  The  Works  of  Gray,  as  edited  in  2  vols.,  by  Mathias, 
in  1814 ;  this  is  the  only  publication  in  which  the  Pem- 
broke MSS.  have  hitherto  been  made  use  of. 

VII.  Souvenirs  de  C.  V.  de  Bonstetten,  1832. 

VIII.  The  Correspondence  of  Horace  Walpole. 

IX.  Gray's  and  Stonehewer's  MSS.,  as  preserved  in 
Pembroke  College,  Cambridge. 

X.  MS.  Notes  and  Letters  by  Grray,  Cole,  and  others, 
in  the  British  Museum. 

By  far  the  best  account  of  Gray,  not  written  by  a  per- 
sonal friend,  is  the  brief  summary  of  his  character  and 
genius  contributed  by  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  to  "  The 
English  Poets." 

No  really  good  or  tolerably  full  edition  of  Gray's  Works 
is  in  existence.  Neither  his  English  nor  his  Latin  Poems 
have  been  edited  in  any  collection  which  is  even  approxi- 
mately complete  ;  and  his  Letters,  although  they  are 
better  given  by  Mitford  than  by  Mason,  are  very  far  from 
being  in  a  satisfactory  condition.  In  many  of  them  the 
date  is  wrongly  printed  ;  and  some  which  bear  no  date, 
are  found,  by  internal  evidence  to  be  incorrectly  attributed 
by  Mitford.     No  attempt  has  ever  been  made  to  collect 


PREFATORY  NOTE.  vii 

Gray's  writings  into  one  single  publication.  I  am  sorry 
to  say  that  all  my  efforts  to  obtain  a  sight  of  G-ray's 
unpublished  letters  and  facetious  poems,  many  of  which 
were  sold  at  Sotheby  and  Wilkinson's,  on  the  4th  of 
August,  1854,  have  failed.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
examination  of  the  Pembroke  MSS.  has  supplied  me  with 
a  considerable  amount  of  very  exact  and  important  bio- 
graphical information  which  has  never  seen  the  light  until 
now. 

I  have  to  express  my  warmest  thanks  to  the  Master 
and  Fellows  of  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge,  who  per- 
mitted me  to  examine  these  invaluable  MSS. ;  to  Mr.  K. 
A.  Neil,  of  Pembroke,  and  Mr.  J.  W.  Clark,  of  Trinity, 
whose  kindness  in  examining  archives,  and  copying  docu- 
ments for  me,  has  been  great ;  to  the  late  Mr.  E.  S. 
Turner,  who  has  placed  his  Gray  MSS.  at  my  disposal ; 
to  Professor  Sidney  Colvin  and  Mr.  Basil  Champneys, 
who  have  given  me  the  benefit  of  their  advice  on  those 
points  of  art  and  architecture  which  are  essential  to  a 
study  of  Gray;  and  to  Mr.  Edward  Scott,  and  Mr. 
Richard  Garnett,  for  valuable  assistance  in  the  Library 
of  the  British  Museum.  For  much  help  in  forming  an 
idea  of  the  world  in  which  Gray  moved,  I  am  indebted 
to  Mr.  Christopher  Wordsworth's  books  on  Cambridge 
in  the  eighteenth  century. 

March  1882. 

To  the  above  statement  I  may  briefly  add  that  in 
1884  I  had  the  pleasure  of  editing  for  Messrs.  Macmillan 
and  Co.,  the  entire  Works  of  Gray,  in  4  volumes.  In  an 
appendix  to  this  volume  I  have  given  a  few  biographical 
facts  which  have  come  to  my  knowledge  since  1882. 

Christmas  1886. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

Childhood  and  Early  College  Life 1 


CHAPTER  II. 
The  Grand  Toue .    23 

CHAPTER  III. 
Stoke-Pogis — Death  of  West— First  English  Poems         .    46 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Life  at  Cambridge 68 

CHAPTER  V. 

The     Elegy— Six   Poems— Death    op     Gray's  Aunt    and 

Mother 93 

CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Pindaric  Odes 117 

CHAPTER  Vn. 
British  Museum— Norton  Nicholls 141 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PAGE 

Life  at  Cambridge — English  Travels        .        ,         .        .165 


CHAPTER  IX. 

BONSTETTEN — DEATH .  .192 

CHAPTER  X. 
Posthumous  .        ,         .        ,        ,        c        ,        .         ,         .211 


APPENDIX  .."......-..  226 


INDEX 227 


GEAY 


GEAY. 


CHAPTER   I 

CHILDHOOD    AND    EARLY    COLLEGE    LIFE. 

Thomas  Gray  was  born  at  his  father's  house  in  Cornhill, 
on  the  26th  of  December,  1716.  Of  his  ancestry  nothing  is 
known.  Late  in  life,  when  he  was  a  famous  poet,  Baron 
Gray  of  Gray  in  Forfarshire  claimed  him  as  a  relation,  but 
with  characteristic  serenity  he  put  the  suggestion  from 
him.  "  I  know  no  pretence,"  he  said  to  Beattie,  "that  I 
have  to  the  honour  Lord  Gray  is  pleased  to  do  me ;  but 
if  his  Lordship  chooses  to  own  me,  it  certainly  is  not  my 
business  to  deny  it."  The  only  proof  of  his  connexion 
with  this  ancient  family  is  that  he  possessed  a  bloodstone 
seal,  which  had  belonged  to  his  father,  engraved  with 
Lord  Gray's  arms,  gules  a  Lion  rampant,  within  a  bordure 
engrailed  argent.  These  have  been  accepted  at  Pem- 
broke College  as  the  poet's  arms,  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact  we  may  say  that  he  sprang  on  both  sides  from 
the  lower-middle  classes.  His  paternal  grandfather  had 
been  a  successful  merchant,  and  died  leaving  Philip, 
apparently  his  only  son,  a  fortune  of  10,000/.  Through 
various  vicissitudes  this  money  passed,  at  length  almost 

B 


2  GftAY.  [chap. 

reaching  the  poet's  hands  in  no  very  much  diminished 
quantity,  for  Philip  Gray  seems  to  have  been  as  clever 
in  business  as  he  was  extravagant.  He  was  born 
July  27,  1676.  Towards  his  thirtieth  year  he  married 
Miss  Dorothy  Antrobus,  a  Buckinghamshire  lady,  about 
twenty  years  of  age,  who,  with  her  sister  Mary,  a  young 
woman  three  years  her  senior,  kept  a  milliner's  shop  in 
the  city.  They  belonged,  however,  to  a  genteel  family, 
for  the  remaining  sister,  Anna,  was  the  wife  of  a  pros- 
perous country  lawyer,  Mr.  Jonathan  Rogers,  and  the  two 
brothers,  Robert  and  Thomas  Antrobus,  were  fellows  of 
Cambridge  colleges,  and  afterwards  tutors  at  Eton. 
These  five  persons  take  a  prominent  place  in  the  subse- 
quent life  of  the  poet,  whereas  he  never  mentions  any  of 
the  Grays.  His  father  had  certainly  one  sister,  Mrs. 
Oliffe,  a  woman  of  violent  temper,  who  married  a  gentle- 
man of  Norfolk,  and  was  well  out  of  the  way  till  after 
the  death  of  Gray's  mother,  when  she  began  to  haunt 
him,  and  only  died  two  or  three  months  before  he  did. 
She  seems  to  have  resembled  Philip  Gray  in  character, 
for  the  poet,  always  singularly  respectful  and  loyal  to  his 
other  elderly  relations,  calls  her  "  the  Spawn  of  Cerberus 
upon  the  Dragon  of  Wantley." 

Dorothy  Gray  was  unfortunate  in  her  married  life; 
her  husband  was  violent,  jealous,  and  probably  mad. 
Of  her  twelve  children,  Thomas  was  the  only  one 
whom  she  reared,  but  Mason  is  doubtless  wrong  in 
saying  that  the  eleven  who  died  were  all  suffocated 
by  infantile  convulsions.  Mrs.  Gray  speaks  in  her 
"  case "  of  the  expense  of  providing  "  all  manner  of 
apparel  for  her  children."  Thomas,  however,  certainly 
would  have  died  as  an  infant,  but  that  his  mother,  finding 
him  in  a  fit,  opened  a  vein  with  her  scissors,  by  that 


I.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  3 

means  relieving  the  determination  of  blood  to  the  brain. 
His  father  neglected  him,  and  he  was  brought  up  by  his 
mother  and  his  aunt  Mary.  He  also  mentions  with 
touching  affection,  in  speaking  of  the  death  of  a  Mrs. 
Bonfoy  in  1763,  that  "she  taught  me  to  pray."  Home 
life  at  Cornhill  was  rendered  miserable  by  the  cruelties 
of  the  father,  and  it  seems  that  the  boy's  uncle,  "Robert 
Antrobus,  took  him  away  to  his  own  house  at  Burnham, 
in  Bucks.  This  gentleman  was  a  fellow  of  Peterhouse, 
as  his  younger  brother  Thomas  was  of  King's  College, 
Cambridge.  With  Eobert  the  boy  studied  botany,  and 
became  learned,  according  to  Horace  Walpole,  in  the 
virtues  of  herbs  and  simples.  Unfortunately  this  uncle 
died  on  January  23,  1729,  at  the  age  of  fifty ;  there  still 
exists  a  copy  of  Waller's  Poems,  in  which  Gray  has 
written  his  own  name,  with  this  date  :  perhaps  it  was  an 
heirloom  of  his  uncle. 

In  one  of  Philip  Gray's  fits  of  extravagance  he 
seems  to  have  had  a  full-length  of  his  son  painted, 
about  this  time,  by  the  fashionable  portrait-painter  of 
the  day,  Jonathan  Richardson  the  elder.  This  picture 
is  now  in  the  Fitzwilliam  Museum  at  Cambridge.  The 
head  is  good  in  colour  and  modelling;  a  broad  pale 
brow,  sharp  nose  and  chin,  large  eyes,  and  a  pert  expres- 
sion give  a  lively  idea  of  the  precocious  and  not  very 
healthy  young  gentleman  of  thirteen.  He  is  dressed  in  a 
blue  satin  coat,  lined  with  pale  shot  silk,  and  crosses  his 
stockinged  legs  so  as  to  display  dapper  slippers  of  russet 
leather.  His  father,  however,  absolutely  refused  to  edu- 
cate him,  and  he  was  sent  to  Eton,  about  1727,  under  the 
auspices  of  his  uncles,  and  at  the  expense  of  his  mother. 
On  the  26th  of  April  of  the  same  year,  a  smart  child  of 
ten  with  the  airs  of  a  little  dancing-master,  a  child  who 


4  GRAY.  [chap. 

was  son  of  a  prime  minister,  and  had  kissed  the  king's 
hand,  entered  the  same  school ;  and  some  intellectual  im- 
pulse brought  them  together  directly  in  a  friendship  that 
was  to  last,  with  a  short  interval,  until  the  death  of  one  of 
them  more  than  forty  years  afterwards. 

It  is  not  certain  that  Horace  Walpole  at  once  adopted  that 
attitude  of  frivolous  worship  which  he  preserved  towards 
Gray  in  later  life.  He  was  a  brilliant  little  social  meteor 
at  Eton,  and  Gray  was  probably  attracted  first  to  him. 
Yet  it  was  characteristic  of  the  poet  throughout  life  that 
he  had  always  to  be  sought,  and  even  at  Eton  his  talents 
may  have  attracted  Walpole's  notice.  At  all  events,  they 
became  fast  friends,  and  fostered  in  one  another  intel- 
lectual pretensions  of  an  alarming  nature.  Both  were  oppi- 
dans and  not  collegers,  and  therefore  it  is  difficult  to  trace 
them  minutely  at  Eton.  But  we  know  that  they  "  never 
made  an  expedition  against  bargemen,  or  won  a  match 
at  cricket,"  for  this  Walpole  confesses  ;  but  they  wandered 
through  the  playing-fields  at  Eton  tending  a  visionary 
flock,  and  "  sighing  out  some  pastoral  name  to  the  echo  of 
the  cascade  under  the  bridge "  which  spans  Chalvey 
Brook.  An  avenue  of  lime  among  the  elms  is  still 
named  the  "  Poet's  Walk,"  and  is  connected  by  tradi- 
tion with  Gray.  They  were  a  pair  of  weakly  little 
boys,  and  in  these  days  of  brisk  athletic  training 
would  hardly  be  allowed  to  exist.  Another  amiable  and 
gentle  boy,  still  more  ailing  than  themselves,  was  early 
drawn  to  them  by  sympathy :  this  was  Richard  West,  a 
few  months  younger  than  Gray  and  older  than  Walpole,  a 
son  of  the  Eichard  West  who  was  made  Lord  Chancellor 
of  Ireland  when  he  was  only  thirty-five,  and  who  then 
immediately  died ;  his  mother's  father,  dead  before  young 
Richard's  birth,  had  been  the  famous  Bishop  Gilbert  Bur- 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  5 

net  A  fourth  friend  was  Thomas  Ashton,  who  soon  slips 
out  of  our  history,  but  who  survived  until  1775. 

These  four  boys  formed  a  "  quadruple  alliance  "  of  the 
warmest  friendship.  West  seemed  the  genius  among  them ; 
he  was  a  nervous  and  precocious  lad,  who  made  verses  in 
his  sleep,  cultivated  not  only  a  public  Latin  Muse,  but  also 
a  private  English  one,  and  dazzled  his  companions  by  the 
ease  and  fluency  of  his  pen.  His  poetical  remains,  to 
which  we  shall  presently  retum;  since  they  are  intimately 
connected  with  the  development  of  Gray's  genius,  are  of 
sufficient  merit  to  permit  us  to  believe  that  had  he  lived 
he  might  have  achieved  a  reputation  among  the  minor 
poets  of  his  age.  Neither  Shenstone  nor  Beattie  had 
written  anything  so  considerable  when  they  reached  the 
age  at  which  West  died.  His  character  was  extremely 
winning,  and  in  his  correspondence  with  Gray,  as  far  as  it 
lias  been  preserved,  we  find  him  at  first  the  more  serious 
and  the  more  affectionate  friend.  But  the  symptoms  of 
his  illness,  which  seem  to  have  closely  resembled  those  of 
Keats,  destroyed  the  superficial  sweetness  of  his  nature, 
and  towards  the  end  we  find  Gray  the  more  sober  and  the 
more  manly  of  the  two. 

Besides  the  inner  circle  of  Walpole,  West,  and  Ashton, 
there  was  an  outer  ring  of  Eton  friends,  whose  names 
have  been  preserved  in  connexion  with  Gray's.  Among 
these  was  George  Montagu,  grand-nephew  of  the  great 
Earl  of  Halifax ;  Stonehewer,  a  very  firm  and  loyal 
friend,  with  whom  Gray's  intimacy  deepened  to  the  end 
of  his  life  ;  Clarke,  afterwards  a  fashionable  physician 
at  Epsom  ;  and  Jacob  Bryant,  the  antiquary,  whose  place 
in  class  was  next  to  Gray's  through  one  term.  With 
these  he  doubtless  shared  those  delights  of  swimming, 
birds'-nesting,  hoops  and  trap-ball,  which  he  has  described, 


6  GRAY.  [CflAP. 

in  ornate  eighteenth-century  fashion,  in  the  famous  stanza 
of  his  Eton  Ode  :  — 

Say,  Father  Thames,  for  thou  hast  seen 

Full  many  a  sprightly  race, 
Disporting  on  thy  margent  green, 

The  paths  of  pleasure  trace  ; 
Who  foremost  now  delights  to  cleave, 
With  pliant  arm,  thy  glassy  wave, 

The  captive  linnet  which  enthral  ? 
What  idle  progeny  succeed 
To  chase  the  rolling  circle's  speed, 

Or  urge  the  flying  ball  ? 

But  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  much 
more  amply  occupied  in  helping  "  grateful  Science  "  to 
adore  "her  Henry's  holy  shade."  Learning  was  still 
preferred  to  athletics  at  our  public  schools,  and  Gray 
was  naturally  drawn  by  temperament  to  study.  It  has 
always  been  understood  that  he  versified,at  Eton,  but  the 
earliest  lines  of  his  which  have  hitherto  been  known  are 
as  late  as  1736,  when  he  had  been  nearly  two  years  at 
Cambridge.  I  was,  however,  fortunate  enough  to 
find  among  the  MSS.  in  Pembroke  College  a  "play 
exercise  at  Eton,"  in  the  poet's  handwriting,  which  had 
never  been  printed,  and  which  is  valuable  as  showing  us 
the  early  ripeness  of  his  scholarship.  It  is  a  theme,  in 
seventy-three  hexameter  verses,  commencing  with  the 
line — 

Pendet  Homo  incertus  gemini  ad  confinia  mundi. 

The  normal  mood  of  man  is  described  as  one  of  hesi- 
tation between  the  things  of  Heaven  and  the  things  of 
Earth  ;  he  assumes  that  all  nature  is  made  for  his  enjoy- 
ment, but  soon  experience  steps  in  and  proves  to  him  the 
contrary ;  he  endeavours  to  fathom  the   laws  of  nature, 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  7 

but  their  scheme  evades  him,  and  he  learns  that  his 
effort  is  a  futile  one.  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is 
man,  and  yet  how  narrow  a  theme  !  Man  yearns  for 
ever  after  superhuman  power  and  accomplishment,  only 
to  discover  the  narrow  scope  of  his  possibilities,  and  he 
has  at  last  to  curb  his  ambition,  and  be  contented  with 
what  God  and  nature  have  ordained.  The  thoughts  are 
beyond  a  boy,  though  borrowed  in  the  main  from  Horace 
and  Pope  ;  while  the  verse  is  still  more  remarkable,  being 
singularly  pure  and  sonorous,  though  studded,  in  boyish 
fashion,  with  numerous  tags  from  Virgil.  What  is  really 
noticeable  about  this  early  effusion,  is  the  curious  way 
in  which  it  prefigures  its  author's  maturer  moral  and 
elegiac  manner ;  we  see  the  writer's  bias  and  the  mode 
in  which  he  will  approach  ethical  questions,  and  we 
detect  in  this  little  "  play-exercise "  a  shadow  of  the 
stately  didactic  reverie  of  the  Odes.  As  this  poem  has 
never  been  described,  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  a  few 
of  the  verses  : — 

Plurimus  (hie  error,  demensque  libido  lacessit) 
In  superos  ccelumque  rait,  sedesque  relinquit, 
Quas  natura  dedit  proprias,  jussitque  tueri. 
Humani  sortem  generis  pars  altera  luget, 
Invidet  armento,  et  campi  sibi  vindicat  herbam. 
O  quis  me  in  pecoris  felicia  transferet  arva, 
In  loca  pastorura  deserta,  atque  otia  dia  ? 
Cur  mihi  non  Lyncisne  oculi,  vel  odora  canum  vis 
Additur,  aut  gressus  cursu  glomerare  potestas  ? 
Aspice  ubi,  teneres  dum  texit  aranea  casses, 
Funditur  in  telam,  et  late  per  stamina  vivit ! 
Quid  mihi  non  tactus  eadem  exquisita  facultas 
Taurorumve  tori  solidi,  pennseve  volucrum. 

In  the  face  of  such  lines  as  these,  and  bearing  in  mind 
Walpole's  assertion  that  "  Gray  never  was  a  boy,"  we  may 


8  GRAY.  [chap. 

form  a  tolerably  exact  idea  of  the  shy  and  studious  lad, 
already  a  scholar  and  a  moralist,  moving  somewhat 
gravely  and  precociously  through  the  classes  of  that 
venerable  college  which  has  since  adopted  him  as  her 
typical  child,  and  which  now  presents  to  each  emerging 
pupil  a  handsome  selection  from  the  works  of  the 
Etonian  par  excellence,  Thomas  Gray. 

In  1734,  the  quadruple  alliance  broke  up.  Gray,  and 
probably  Ashton,  proceeded  to  Cambridge,  where  the  former 
was  for  a  short  time  a  pensioner  of  Pembroke  Hall,  but 
went  over,  on  the  3rd  of  July,  still  as  a  pensioner, 
to  his  uncle  Antrobus'  College,  Peterhouse.1  Walpole 
went  up  to  London  for  the  winter,  and  did  not  make 
his  appearance  at  King's  College,  Cambridge,  until  March, 
1735.  West,  meanwhile,  had  been  isolated  from  his 
friends  by  being  sent  to  Oxford,  where  he  entered  Christ 
Church  much  against  his  will.  For  a  year  the  young 
undergraduates  are  absolutely  lost  to  sight.  If  they 
wrote  to  one  another,  their  letters  are  missing,  and  the 
correspondence  of  Walpole  and  of  Gray  with  West  begins 
in  November  1735. 

But  in  the  early  part  of  that  year  a  very  striking  inci- 
dent occurred  in  the  Gray  family,  an  incident  that  was 
perfectly  unknown  until,  in  1807,  a  friend  of  Hasle- 
wood's  happened  to  discover,  in  a  volume  of  MS.  law- 
cases,  a  case  submitted  by  Mrs.  Dorothy  Gray  to  the 
eminent  civilian  John  Audley,   in  February   1735.      In 

1  The  Master  of  Peterhouse  has  kindly  copied  for  me,  from  the 
register  of  admissions  at  that  college,  this  entry,  hitherto  in- 
edited.  : — "  Jul :  3ti0-  1734.  Thomas  Gray  Middlesexiensis  in 
schola  publica  Etonensi  institutus,  annosque  natus  18  (petente 
Tutore  suo)  censetur  admisus  ad  Mensam  Pensionariorum  sub 
Tutore  et  Fidejussore  Mro-  Birkett,  sed  ea  lege  ut  brevi  se  sistat 
in  collegio  et  examinatoribus  se  probet." 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  9 

this  extraordinary  document  the  poet's  mother  states 
that  for  nearly  thirty  years,  that  is  to  say  for  the  whole 
of  her  married  life,  she  has  received  no  support  from  her 
husband,  but  has  depended  entirely  on  the  receipts  of 
the  shop  kept  by  herself  and  her  sister,  moreover  "  almost 
providing  everything  for  her  son,  whilst  at  Eton  school, 
and  now  he  is  at  Peter-House  in  Cambridge." 

Notwithstanding  which,  almost  ever  since  he  (her  husband) 
hath  been  married,  he  hath  used  her  in  the  most  inhuman 
manner,  by  beating,  kicking,  punching,  and  with  the  most  vile 
and  abusive  language,  that  she  hath  been  in  the  utmost  fear  and 
danger  of  her  life,  and  hath  been  obliged  this  last  year  to  quit 
her  bed,  and  lie  with  her  sister.  This  she  was  resolved,  if  possi- 
ble, to  bear  ;  not  to  leave  her  shop  of  trade  for  the  sake  of  her 
son,  to  be  able  to  assist  in  the  maintainance  of  him  at  the 
University,  since  his  father  won't. 

Mrs.  Gray  goes  on  to  state  that  her  husband  has  an 
insane  jealousy  of  all  the  world,  and  even  of  her  brother 
Thomas  Antrobus,  and  that  he  constantly  threatens  "  to 
ruin  himself  to  undo  her,  and  his  only  son,"  having  now 
gone  so  far  as  to  give  Mary  Antrobus  notice  to  quit  the 
shop  in  Cornhill  at  Midsummer  next.  If  he  carries  out 
this  threat,  Mrs.  Gray  says  that  she  must  go  with  her 
sister,  to  help  her  "  in  the  said  trade,  for  her  own  and 
her  son's  support."  She  asks  legal  counsel  which  way 
will  be  best  "  for  her  to  conduct  herself  in  this  unhappy 
circumstance."  Mr.  Audley  writes  sympathetically  from 
Doctor's  Commons,  but  civilly  and  kindly  tells  her  that 
she  can  find  no  protection  in  the  English  law. 

This  strange  and  tantalising  document,  the  genuineness 
of  which  has  never  been  disputed,  is  surrounded  by 
difficulties   to    a  biographer,       The    known   wealth   and 


10  GRAY.  [chap. 

occasional  extravagances  of  Philip  Gray  make  it  hard  to 
understand  why  he  should  be  so  rapacious  of  his  wife's 
little  earnings,  and  at  the  same  time  so  barbarous  in  his 
neglect  of  her  and  of  his  son.  That  there  is  not  one 
word  or  hint  of  family  troubles  in  Gray's  copious  corre- 
spondence is  what  we  might  expect  from  so  proud  and 
reticent  a  nature.  But  the  gossipy  Walpole  must  have 
known  all  this,  and  Mason  need  not  have  been  so  ex- 
cessively discreet,  when  all  concerned  had  long  been 
dead.  Perhaps  Mrs.  Gray  exaggerated  a  little,  and 
perhaps  also  the  vileness  of  her  husband's  behaviour  in 
1735  made  her  forget  that  in  earlier  years  they  had 
lived  on  gentler  terms.  At  all  events,  the  money- 
scrivener  is  shown  to  have  been  miserly,  violent,  and,  as 
I  have  before  conjectured,  probably  half-insane.  The 
interesting  point  in  the  whole  story  is  Mrs.  Gray's  self- 
sacrifice  for  her  son,  a  devotion  which  he  in  his  turn 
repaid  with  passionate  attachment,  and  remembered  with 
tender  effusion  to  the  day  of  his  death.  He  inherited 
from  his  mother  his  power  of  endurance,  his  quiet  recti- 
tude, his  capacity  for  suffering  in  silence,  and  the  singular 
tenacity  of  his  affections. 

Gray,  Ashton  and  Horace  Walpole  were  at  Cambridge 
together  as  undergraduates  from  the  spring  of  1735  until 
the  winter  of  1738.  They  associated  very  much  with 
one  another,  and  Walpole  shone  rather  less  it  would 
appear  than  at  any  other  part  of  his  life.  The  following 
extract  of  a  letter  from  Walpole  to  West,  dated  Novem- 
ber 9,  1735,  is  particularly  valuable  : — 

Tydeus  rose  and  set  at  Eton.  He  is  only  known  here  to  be  a 
scholar  of  King's.  Orosmades  and  Almanzor  are  just  the  same  ; 
that  is,  I  am  almost  the  only  person  they  are  acquainted  with, 
and  consequently  the  only  person  acquainted  with  their  excel- 


I.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EAlfcLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  11 

lencies.  Plato  improves  every  day  ;  so  does  my  friendship  with 
him.  These  three  divide  my  whole  time,  though  I  believe  you 
will  guess  there  is  no  quadruple  alliance ;  that  is  a  happiness 
which  I  only  enjoyed  when  you  was  at  Eton. 

The  nick-name  which  gives  us  least  difficulty  here  is 
that  in  which  we  are  most  interested.  Orosmades  was 
.7  West's  name  for  Gray,  because  he  was  such  a  chilly 
!  mortal,  and  worshipped  the  sun.  West  himself  was 
known  as  Favonius.  Tydeus  is  very  clearly  Walpole 
himself,  and  Almanzor  is  probably  Ashton.  I  would 
hazard  the  conjecture  that  Plato  is  Henry  Coventry,  a 
young  man  then  making  some  stir  in  the  University  with 
certain  semi-religious  Dialogues.  He  was  a  friend  of 
Ashton's,  and  produced  on  Horace  Walpole  a  very  start- 
ling impression,  causing  in  that  volatile  creature  for  the 
first  and  only  time  an  access  of  fervent  piety,  during 
which  Horace  actually  went  to  read  the  Bible  to  the 
prisoners  in  the  Castle  gaol.  Very  soon  this  wore  off, 
and  Coventry  himself  became  a  free-thinker,  but  Ashton 
remained  serious,  and  taking  orders  very  early,  dropped 
out  of  the  circle  of  friends.  In  all  this  the  name  of 
Gray  is  not  mentioned,  but  one  is  justified  in  believing 
that  he  did  not  join  the  reading-parties  at  the  Castle. 

Early  in  1736  the  three  Cambridge  undergraduates 
appeared  in  print  simultaneously  and  for  the  first  time 
in  a  folio  collection  of  Latin  Hymeneals  on  the  marriage 
of  Frederic,  Prince  of  Wales.  Of  these  effusions,  Gray's 
copy  of  hexameters  is  by  far  the  best,  and  was  so  re- 
cognized from  the  first.  Mason  has  thought  it  necessary 
to  make  a  curious  apology  for  this  poem,  and  says  that 
Gray  "  ought  to  have  been  above  prostituting  his  powers  " 
in  "  adulatory  verses  of  this  kind."  But  if  he  had 
glanced  through  the  lines  again,  of  which  he  must  have 


12  GRAY.  [chap. 

been  speaking  from  memory,  Mason  would  have  seen 
that  they  contain  no  more  fulsome  compliments  than 
were  absolutely  needful  on  the  occasion.  The  young 
poet  is  not  thinking  at  all  about  their  royal  highnesses, 
but  a  great  deal  about  his  own  fine  language,  and  is  very 
innocent  of  anything  like  adulation.  The  verses  them- 
selves do  not  show  much  progress ;  there  is  a  fine 
passage  at  the  end,  but  it  is  almost  a  cento  from  Ovid. 
One  line,  melancholy  to  relate,  does  not  scan.  In  every 
way  superior  to  the  Hymeneal  is  Luna  Habitahilis,  a 
poem  in  nearly  one  hundred  verses,  written  by  desire  of 
the  College  in  1737,  and  printed  in  the  Musce  Etonenses. 
It  is  impossible  to  lay  any  stress  on  these  official  pro- 
ductions, mere  exercises  on  a  given  text.  At  Pembroke, 
both  in  the  library  of  the  College,  and  in  the  Stonehewer 
MSS.  at  the  master's  lodge,  I  have  examined  a  number  of 
similar  pieces,  in  prose  and  verse,  copied  in  a  round 
youthful  handwriting,  and  signed  "  Gray."  Among  them 
a  copy  of  elegiacs,  on  the  5th  of  November,  struck  me 
as  particularly  clever,  and  it  might  be  well,  as  the  body 
of  Gray's  works  is  so  small,  and  his  Latin  verse  so  ad- 
mirable, to  include  several  of  these  in  a  complete  edition 
of  his  writings.  They  do  not,  however,  greatly  concern 
us  here. 

As  early  as  May  1736  it  is  curious  to  find  the  dulness 
of  Cambridge  already  lying  with  a  leaden  weight  on  the 
nerves  and  energies  of  Gray,  a  youth  scarcely  in  his 
twentieth  year.  In  his  letters  to  West  he  strikes  exactly 
the  same  note  that  he  harped  upon  ten  years  later  to 
Wharton,  twenty  years  later  to  Mason,  thirty  years  later 
to  Norton  Nichols,  and  in  his  last  months,  with  more 
shrill  insistence  than  ever,  to  Bonstetten.  The  cloud 
sank  early  upon  his  spirits.     He  writes  to  West :  "  when 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  13 

we  meet  it  will  be  my  greatest  of  pleasures  to  know  what 
you  do,  what  you  read,  and  how  you  spend  your  time, 
and  to  tell  you  what  I  do  not  read,  and  how  I  do  not, 
&c.,  for  almost  all  the  employment  of  my  hours  may  be  best 
explained  by  negatives ;  take  my  word  and  experience 
upon  it,  doing  nothing  is  a  most  amusing  business ;  and 
yet  neither  something  nor  nothing  gives  me  any  pleasure. 
When  you  have  seen  one  of  my  days,  you  have  seen  a 
whole  year  of  my  life  ;  they  go  round  and  round  like 
the  blind  horse  in  the  mill,  only  he  has  the  satisfaction 
of  fancying  he  makes  a  progress  and  gets  some  ground  ; 
my  eyes  are  open  enough  to  see  the  same  dull  prospect, 
and  to  know  that  having  made  four-and-twenty  steps 
more,  I  shall  be  just  where  I  was."  This  is  the  real 
Gray  speaking  to  us  for  the  first  time,  and  after  a  few 
more  playful  phrases,  he  turns  again,  and  gives  us  another 
phase  of  his  character.  "  You  need  not  doubt,  therefore, 
of  having  a  first  row  in  the  front  box  of  my  little  heart, 
and  I  believe  you  are  not  in  danger  of  being  crowded 
there ;  it  is  asking  you  to  an  old  play,  indeed,  but  you 
will  be  candid  enough  to  excuse  the  whole  piece  for  the 
sake  of  a  few  tolerable  lines."  Many  clever  and  delicate 
boys  think  it  effective  to  pose  as  victims  to  melancholy, 
and  the  former  of  these  passages  would  possess  no  im- 
portance if  it  were  not  for  its  relation  to  the  poet's  later 
.  expressions.  He  never  henceforward  habitually  rose  above 
this  deadly  dulness  of  the  spirits.  His  melancholy  was 
,passive  and  under  control,  not  acute  and  rebellious,  like 
that  of  Cowper,  but  it  was  almost  more  enduring.  It  is 
probable  that  with  judicious  medical  treatment  it  might 
,have  been  removed,  or  so  far  relieved  as  to  be  harmless. 
But  it  was  not  the  habit  of  men  in  the  first  half  of  the 
eighteenth    century  to    take    any  rational    care   of   their 


14  GRAY.  [chap. 

health.  Men  who  lived  in  the  country  and  did  not  hunt, 
took  no  exercise  at  all.  The  constitution  of  the  genera- 
tion was  suffering  from  the  mad  frolics  of  the  preceding 
age,  and  almost  everybody  had  a  touch  of  gout  or  scurvy. 
Nothing  was  more  frequent  than  for  men,  in  apparently 
robust  health,  to  break  down  suddenly,  at  all  points,  in 
early  middle  life.  People  were  not  in  the  least  surprised 
when  men  like  Garth  and  Fenton  died  of  mere  indolence, 
because  they  had  become  prematurely  corpulent  and  could 
not  be  persuaded  to  get  out  of  bed.  Gray,  Thomson, 
and  Gray  are  illustrious  examples  of  the  neglect  of  all 
hygienic  precaution  among  quiet  middle-class  people  in 
the  early  decades  of  the  century.  Gray  took  no  exereise 
whatever ;  Cole  reports  that  he  said  at  the  end  of  his 
life  that  he  had  never  thrown  his  leg  across  the  back  of 
a  horse,  and  this  was  really  a  very  extraordinary  confes- 
sion for  a  man  to  make  in  those  days.  But  we  shall 
have  to  return  to  the  subject  of  Gray's  melancholy,  and 
we  need  not  dwell  upon  it  here,  further  than  to  note  that 
it  began  at  least  with  his  undergraduate  days.  He  was 
considered  effeminate  at  college,  but  the  only  proof  of 
this  that  is  given  to  us  is  one  with  which  the  most  robust 
modern  reader  must  sympathise,  namely  that  he  drank 
tea  for  breakfast,  while  all  the  rest  of  the  university, 
except  Horace  Walpole,  drank  beer. 

The  letter  from  which  we  have  just  quoted  goes  on  to 
show  that  the  idleness  of  his  life  existed  only  in  his 
imagination.  He  was,  in  fact,  at  this  time  wandering  at 
will  along  the  less-trodden  paths  of  Latin  literature,  and 
rapidly  laying  the  foundation  of  his  unequalled  acquaint- 
ance with  the  classics.  He  is  now  reading  Statius,  he 
tells  .West,  and  he  encloses  a  translation  of  about  one 
hundred  and  ten  lines  from  the  sixth  book  of  the  Thebaid. 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  15 

This  is  the  first  example  of  his  English  verse  which  has 
been  preserved.  It  is  very  interesting,  as  showing  already 
the  happy  instinct  which  led  Gray  to  reject  the  mode  of 
Pope  in  favour  of  the  more  massive  and  sonorous  verse- 
system  of  Dry  den.  He  treats  the  heroic  couplet  with 
great  skill,  but  in  close  discipleship  of  the  latter  master  in 
his  Fables.  To  a  trained  ear,  after  much  study  of  minor 
English  verse  written  between  1720  and  1740,  these 
couplets  have  almost  an  archaic  sound,  so  thoroughly  are 
they  out  of  keeping  with  the  glib,  satiric  poetry  of  the 
period.  Pope  was  a  splendid  artificer  of  verse,  but  there 
was  so  much  of  pure  intellect,  and  of  personal  tempera- 
ment, in  the  conduct  of  his  art,  that  he  could  not  pass  on 
his  secret  to  his  pupils,  and  in  the  hands  of  his  direct 
imitators  the  heroic  couplet  lost  every  charm  but  that  of 
mere  sparkling  progress.  The  verse  of  such  people  as 
Whitehead  had  become  a  simple  voluntary  upon  knitting- 
needles.  Gray  saw  the  necessity  of  bringing  back 
melody  and  volume  to  the  heroic  line,  and  very  soon  the 
practice  of  the  day  disgusted  him,  as  we  shall  see,  with 
the  couplet  altogether.  For  the  present  he  was  learning 
the  principles  of  his  art  at  the  feet  of  Dryden.  West  was 
delighted  with  the  translation,  and  compared  Gray  con- 
tending with  Statius  to  Apollo  wrestling  with  Hyacinth. 
In  a  less  hyperbolical  spirit,  he  pointed  out,  very  justly, 
the  excellent  rendering  of  that  peculiarly  Statian  phrase, 
Summos  auro  mansueverat  ungues,  by 

And  calm'd  the  terrors  of  his  claws  in  gold. 

We  find  from  Walpole  that  Gray  spent  his  vacations  in 
August,  1736,  at  his  uncle's  house  at  Burnham,  in  Buck- 
inghamshire ;  and  here  he  was  close  to  the  scene  of  so 
many  of  his  later  experiences,  the  sylvan  parish  of  Stoke- 


1C  GRAY.  [chap. 

Pogis.  For  the  present,  however,  all  we  hear  is  that  he 
is  too  lazy  to  go  over  to  Eton,  which  the  enthusiastic 
Walpole  and  West  consider  to  be  perfectly  unpardonable. 
A  year  later  he  is  again  with  his  uncle  at  Burnham ;  and  it 
is  on  this  occasion  that  he  discovers  the  since-famous 
beeches.  He  is  writing  to  Horace  Walpole,  and  he 
says  : — 

My  Uncle  is  a  great  hunter  in  imagination  ;  his  dogs  take  up 
every  chair  in  the  house,  so  I  am  forced  to  stand  at  the  present 
writing ;  and  though  the  gout  forbids  him  galloping  after  them  in 
the  field,  yet  he  continues  still  to  regale  his  ears  and  nose  with 
their  comfortable  noise  and  stink.  He  holds  me  mighty  cheap, 
I  perceive,  for  walking  when  I  should  ride,  and  reading  when  I 
should  hunt.  My  comfort  amidst  all  this  is,  that  I  have  at  the 
distance  of  half  a  mile,  through  a  green  lane,  a  forest  (the  vulgar 
call  it  a  common),  all  my  own,  at  least,  as  good  as  so,  for  I  spy 
no  human  thing  in  it  but  myself.  It  is  a  little  chaos  of  moun- 
tains and  precipices,  mountains,  it  is  true,  that  do  not  ascend 
much  above  the  clouds,  nor  are  the  declivities  quite  so  amazing 
as  Dover  Cliff;  but  just  such  hills  as  people  who  love  their  necks 
as  well  as  I  do  may  venture  to  climb,  and  crags  that  give  the 
eye  as  much  pleasure  as  if  they  were  more  dangerous.  Both 
vale  and  hill  are  covered  with  most  venerable  beeches,  and  other 
very  reverend  vegetables,  that,  like  most  other  ancient  people, 
are  always  dreaming  out  their  old  stories  to  the  winds.  At  the 
foot  of  one  of  these  squats  ME  (il  penseroso)  and  there  I  grow  to 
the  trunk  for  a  whole  morning.  The  timorous  hare  and  sportive 
squirrel  gambol  around  me  like  Adam  in  Paradise  before  he  had 
an  Eve  ;  but  I  think  he  did  not  use  to  read  Virgil,  as  I  commonly 
do. 

This  is  the  first  expression,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  of  the 
modern  feeling  of  the  picturesque.  We  shall  see  that  it 
became  more  and  more  a  characteristic  impulse  with  Gray 
as  years  went  by.      In  this  letter,  too,  we  see  that  at  the 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  17 

age  of  twenty-one  he  had  already  not  a  little  of  that 
sprightly  wit  and  variety  of  manner  which  make  him  one 
of  the  most  delightful  letter-writers  in  any  literature.  '' 

At  Burnham,  in  1737,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
a  very  interesting  waif  of  the  preceding  century.  Thomas 
Southerne,  the  once  famous  author  of  Oroonoko  and  The 
Fatal  Marriage,  the  last  survivor  of  the  age  of  Dryden,  was 
visiting  a  gentleman  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Burnham, 
and  was  so  much  pleased  with  young  Gray,  that  though 
he  was  seventy-seven  years  of  age  he  often  came  over  to 
the  house  of  Mr.  Antrobus  to  see  him.  Still  oftener, 
without  doubt,  the  young  poet  went  to  see  the  veteran, 
whose  successes  on  the  stage  of  the  Restoration  took  him 
back  fifty  years  to  a  society  very  different  from  that  in 
which  he  now  vegetated  on  the  ample  fortune  which  his 
tragedies  still  brought  him  in.  Unhappily  his  memory 
was  almost  entirely  gone,  though  he  lived  nine  years 
more,  and  died  of  sheer  old  age  on  the  borders  of  ninety  ; 
so  that  Gray's  curiosity  about  Dryden  and  the  other 
poets  his  friends  was  more  provoked  than  gratified. 
However,  Gray  found  him  as  agreeable  an  old  man  as 
could  be,  and  liked  "  to  look  at  him  and  think  of  Isabella 
and  Oroonoko"  those  personages  then  still  being  typical 
of  romantic  disappointment  and  picturesque  sensibility. 
About  this  time,  moreover,  we  may  just  note  in  passing, 
died  Matthew  Green,  whose  posthumous  poem  of  The 
Spleen  was  to  exercise  a  considerable  influence  over  Gray, 
and  to  be  one  of  the  few  contemporary  poems  which  he 
was  able  fervidly  to  admire. 

Lest,  however,  the  boy  should  seem  too  serious  and 
precocious,  if  we  know  him  only  by  the  scholarly  letters 
to  West,  let  us  print  here,  for  the  first  time,  a  note  to  his 
tutor,  the  Rev.  George   Birkett,  Fellow   of  Peterhouse,  a 

c 


18  GRAY.  [chap. 

note  which  throws  an  interesting  light  on  his  manners. 
The  postmark  of  this  letter,  which  has  lately  been  dis- 
covered at  Pembroke  College,  is  October  8,  the  year,  I 
think,  1736  :— 

Sr , — As  I  shall  stay  only  a  fortnight  longer  in  town,  I'll  beg 
you  to  give  yourself  the  trouble  of  writing  out  my  Bills,  and 
sending  'em,  that  I  may  put  myself  out  of  your  Debt,  as  soon  as 
I  come  down  :  if  Piazza  should  come  to  you,  you'll  be  so  good 
as  to  satisfie  him :  I  protest,  I  forget  what  I  owe  him,  but  he  is 
honest  enough  to  tell  you  right.  My  Father  and  Mother  desire 
me  to  send  their  compliments,  and  I  beg  you'd  believe  me 
Sr-,  your  most  obedt-  humble  Servt- 

T.  Geay. 

The  amusing  point  is  that  the  tutor  seems  to  have  flown 
into  a  rage  at  the  pert  tone  of  this  epistle,  and  we  have 
the  rough  draft  of  two  replies  on  the  fly-sheet.     The  first 
addresses  him  as  "  pretty  Mr.  Gray,"  and  is  a  moral  box 
on  the  ear ;  but  this  has  been   cancelled,  as  wrath  gave 
way  to  discretion,  and  the   final  answer  is  very  friendly, 
and  states  that  the   writer  would  do  anything  "  for  your 
father  and  your  uncle,   Mr.   Antrobus  (Thos.)."     Signor 
Piazza  was  the  Italian  master  to  the   University,  and  six 
t  months  later  we  find  Gray,  and  apparently  Horace  "Wal- 
;  pole  also,  learning  Italian  "  like  any  dragon."     The  course 
;  of  study  habitual  at  the  University  was  entirely  out  of 
sympathy  with  Gray's  instinctive  movements  after  know- 
ledge.    He  complains  bitterly  of  having  to  endure  lectures 
'  daily  and  hourly,  and  of  having  to  waste  his  time  over 
/  mathematics,  where  his  teacher  was  the  celebrated  Pro- 
fessor Nicholas  Saunderson,  whose  masterly  Elements  of 
Algebra,  afterwards  the  text-books  of  the  University,  were 
I  still  known  only  by  oral  tradition.     For  such  learning 
Gray  had  neither  taste  nor  patience.     "It  is  very  pos- 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  19 

sible,"  he  writes  to  West,  "  that  two  and  two  make  four, 
I  but  I  would  not  give  four  farthings  to  demonstrate  this 
i  ever  so  clearly ;  and  if  these  be  the  profits  of  life,  give 
ime  the  amusements  of  it."     His  account  of  the  low  eon- 

/  dition  of  classic  learning  at  Cambridge  we  must  take  with 
a  grain  of  salt.  As  an  undergraduate  he  would  of  course 
see  nothing  of  the  great  lights  of  the  University,  now 
sinking  beneath  the  horizon  j  such  a  shy  lad  as  he  would 
not  be  asked  to  share  the  conversation  of  Bentley,  or 
Snape,  or  the  venerable  Master  of  Jesus.  What  does 
seem  clear  from  his  repeated  denunciations  of  "  that 
pretty  collection  of  desolate  animals  "  called  Cambridge,  is 
that  classical  taste  was  at  a  very  low  ebb  among  the  junior 
fellows  and  the  elder  undergraduates.  The  age  of  the  great 
Latinists  had  passed  away;  the  Greek  revival,  which 
Gray  did  much  to  start,  had  not  begun,  and  1737  was 
certainly  a  dull  year  at  the  University.  It  seems  that 
there  were  no  Greek  text-books  for  the  use  of  schools 
until  1741,  and  the  method  of  pronouncing  that  language 
was  as  depraved  as  possible.  A  few  hackneyed  extracts 
from  Homer  and  Hesiod  were  all  that  a  youth  was 
required  to  have  read  in  order  to  pass  his  examination. 

-  Plato  and  Aristotle  were  almost  unknown,  and  Gray  him- 
>  ]  self  seems  to  have  been  the  only  person  at  Cambridge  who 
attempted  seriously  to  write  Greek  verse.  It  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  understand  that  when,  with  the  third  term  of  his 
second  year,  his  small  opportunities  of  classical  reading 
were  taken  from  him,  and  he  saw  himself  descend  into  the 

i  Cimmerian  darkness  of  undiluted  mathematics,  the  heart 
of  the  young  poet  sank  within  him.     In  December  1736 

^  there  was  an  attempt  at  rebellion ;  he  declined  to  take 

i  degrees,  and  announced  his  intention  of  quitting  college, 
but  as  we  hear  no  more  of  this,  and  as  he  stayed  two 


J 


20  GRAY.  [chap. 

years  longer  at  Cambridge,  we  may  believe  that  this  was 
overruled. 

Meanwhile  the  leaden  rod  seemed  to  rule  the  fate  of 
the  quadruple  alliance.  West  grew  worse  and  worse, 
hopelessly  entangled  in  consumptive  symptoms.  Walpole 
lost  his  mother  in  August  of  1737,  and  after  this  was  a 
kind  of  waif  and  stray  until  he  finally  left  England  in 
1739.  Gray,  whether  in  Cambridge  or  London,  reverts 
more  and  more  constantly  to  his  melancholy.  "  Low 
spirits  are  my  true  and  faithful  companions  ;  they  get  up 
with  me,  go  to  bed  with  me,  make  journeys  and  returns  as 
I  do  ;  nay,  and  pay  visits,  and  will  even  affect  to  be 
jocose,  and  force  a  feeble  laugh  with  me ;  but  most  com- 
monly we  sit  together,  and  are  the  prettiest  insipid  com- 
pany in  the  world.  However,  when  you  come,"  he  writes 
to  West,  "  I  believe  they  must  undergo  the  fate  of  all 
humble  companions,  and  be  discarded.  Would  I  could 
turn  them  to  the  same  use  that  you  have  done,  and  make 
an  Apollo  of  them.  If  they  could  write  such  verses  with 
me,  not  hartshorn,  nor  spirit  of  amber,  nor  all  that  fur- 
nishes the  closet  of  the  apothecary's  wisdom,  should  per- 
suade me  to  part  with  them."  For  West  had  been  writing 
a  touching  eulogy  ad  amicos,  in  the  manner  of  Tibullus, 
inspired  by  real  feeling  and  a  sad  presentiment  of  the 
death  that  lay  five  years  ahead.  In  reading  these  lines  of 
Gray's,  we  hardly  know  whether  most  to  admire  the  mar- 
vellous lightness  and  charm  of  the  style,  or  to  be  concerned 
at  such  confession  of  want  of  spirits  in  a  lad  of  twenty-one. 
His  letters,  however,  when  they  could  be  wrung  out  of 
his  apathy,  were  precious  to  poor  West  at  Oxford  ;  "  I  find 
no  physic  comparable  to  your  letters :  prescribe  to  me, 
dear  Gray,  as  often  and  as  much  as  you  think  proper," 
and  the  amiable  young  pedants  proceed,  as  before,  to  the 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  EARLY  COLLEGE  LIFE.  21 

analysis  of  Poseidippos,  and  Lucretius,  and  such  like  frivo- 
lous reading.  One  of  West's  letters  contains  a  piece  of 
highly  practical  advice.  "Indulge,  amabo  te,  plusquam 
soles,  corporis  exercitationibus,"  but  bodily  exercise  was 
just  what  Gray  declined  to  indulge  in  to  the  end  of  his 
life.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  been  even  a  walker  ;  in- 
doors he  was  a  bookworm,  and  out-of-doors  a  saunterer  and 
a  dreamer ;  nor  was  there  ever,  it  would  seem,  a  "good 
friend  Matthew  "  to  urge  the  too-pensive  student  out  into 
the  light  of  common  life. 

Certain  interesting  poetical  exercises  mark  the  close  of 
Gray's  undergraduate  career.  A  Latin  ode  in  Sapphics 
and  a  fragment  in  Alcaics  were  sent  in  June,  1738,  to 
West,  who  had  just  left  Oxford  for  the  Inner  Temple. 
The  second  of  these,  which  is  so  brief  that  it  may  surely 
be  quoted  here, — 

O  lacrymarum  fons,  tenero  sacros 
Ducentium  ortus  ex  animo  ;  quater 
Felix  !  in  imo  qui  scatentem 
Pectore  te,  pia  Nympha,  sensit, 

has  called  forth  high  eulogy  from  scholars  of  every  suc- 
ceeding generation.  It  is  in  such  tiny  seed-pearl  of  song 
as  this  that  we  find  the  very  quintessence  of  Gray's  peculiar 
grace  and  delicacy.  To  July  1737  belongs  a  version 
into  English  heroics  of  a  long  passage  from  Propertius, 
beginning — 

Now  prostrate,  Bacchus,  at  thy  shrine  I  bend, 

which  I  have  not  met  with  in  print ;  and  another  piece 
from  the  same  poet,  beginning  "  Long  as  of  youth," 
which  occurs  in  all  the  editions  of  Gray,  bears  on  the 
original   MS.    at    Pembroke   the    date   Dec.    1738.       It 


22  GRAY.  [ch.  i. 

may  be  remarked  that  in  the  printed  copies  the  two  last 
lines, — 

You  whose  young  bosoms  feel  a  nobler  flame 
Redeem  what  Crassus  lost  and  vindicate  his  name, 

have  accidentally  dropped  out.  In  September  1738  Gray 
left  Cambridge,  and  took  up  his  abode  in  his  father's  house 
for  six  months,  apparently  with  no  definite  plans  regarding 
his  own  future  career ;  but  out  of  this  sleepy  condition  of 
mind  he  was  suddenly  waked  by  Horace  Walpole's  pro- 
position that  they  should  start  together  on  the  grand  tour. 
The  offer  was  a  generous  one.  Walpole  was  to  pay  all 
Gray's  expenses,  but  Gray  was  to  be  absolutely  inde- 
pendent :  there  was  no  talk  of  the  poet's  accompanying 
his  younger  friend  in  any  secondary  capacity,  and  it  is 
only  fair  to  Horace  Walpole  to  state  that  he  seems  to  have 
acted  in  a  thoroughly  kind  and  gentlemanly  spirit.  What 
was  still  more  remarkable  was,  that  without  letting  Gray 
know,  he  made  out  his  will  before  starting,  and  so  arranged 
that  had  he  died  while  abroad,  Gray  would  have  been  his 
sole  legatee.  The  frivolities  of  Horace  Walpole  have  been 
dissected  with  the  most  cruel  frankness  ;  it  is  surely  only 
just  to  point  out  that  in  this  instance  he  acted  a  very 
gracious  and  affectionate  part.  On  the  29th  of  March, 
J     1739,  the  two  friends  started  from  Dover. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   GRAND    TOUR. 

Gray  was  only  out  of  his  native  country  once,  but  that 
single  visit  to  the  Continent  lasted  for  nearly  three  years, 
and  produced  a  very  deep  impression  upon  his  character. 
It  is  difficult  to  realize  what  he  would  have  become  with- 
out this  stimulus  to  the  animal  and  external  part  of  his 
nature.  He  was  in  danger  of  settling  down  in  a  species 
of  moral  inertia,  of  becoming  dull  and  torpid,  of  spoiling 
a  great  poet  to  make  a  little  pedant.  The  happy  fri- 
volities of  France  and  Italy,  though  they  were  powerless 
over  the  deep  springs  of  his  being,  stirred  the  surface  of 
it,  and  made  him  bright  and  human.  It  is  to  be  noticed 
that  we  hear  nothing  of  his  "  true  and  faithful  companion, 
melancholy,"  while  he  is  away  in  the  south  ;  he  was  cheer- 
fully occupied,  taken  out  of  himself,  and  serene  in  the 
gaiety  of  others.  The  two  friends  enjoyed  a  very  rough 
passage  from  Dover  to  Calais,  and  on  landing  Gray 
anticipated  Dr.  Johnson  by  being  surprised  that  the 
inhabitants  of  the  country  could  speak  French  so  well. 
He  also  discovered  that  they  were  all  "  Papishes,"  and 
briskly  adapted  himself  to  the  custom  of  the  land  by  at- 
tending high  mass  the  next  day,  which  happened  to  be 
Easter  Monday.  In  the  afternoon  the  companions  set  out 
through  a  snow-storm  for  Boulogne  in  a  post-chaise,  a  con- 


24  G&AY.  [chap. 

veyance — not  then  imported  into  England — which  filled 
the  young  men  with  hilarious  amazement.     Walpole,  sen- 
sibly suggesting  that  there  was  no  cause  for  hurry,  refused  to 
be  driven  express  to  Paris ;  and  so  they  loitered  very  agree- 
ably through  Picardy,  stopping  at  Montreuil,  Abbeville,  and 
Amiens.     From  the  latter  city  Gray  wrote  an  amusing 
account  of  his  journey  to  his  mother,  containing  a  lively 
description  of  French  scenery.      u  The  country  we  have 
passed  through  hitherto  has  been  flat,  open,  but  agreeably 
diversified  with  villages,  fields  well  cultivated,  and  little 
rivers.     On  every  hillock   is  a  windmill,  a  crucifix,  or  a 
Virgin  Mary  dressed  in  flowers  and  a  sarcenet  robe  j  one 
sees  not  many  people  or  carriages  on  the  road.     Now  and 
then  indeed  you  meet  a  strolling  friar,  a  countryman  with 
his  great  muff,  or  a  woman  riding  astride  on  a  little  ass, 
with  short  petticoats,  and  a  great  head-dress  of  blue  wool." 
On  the  9th  of  April,  rather  late  on  a  Saturday  evening, 
they  rolled   into   Paris,    and   after   a   bewildering   drive 
drew  up  at  last  at  the  lodgings  which  had  been  prepared 
for  them,  probably  in  or  near  the  British  Embassy,  and 
found  themselves  warmly  welcomed  by  Walpole's  cousins, 
the  Conways,  and  by  Lord   Holdernesse.     These  young 
men  were  already  in  the  thick  of  the  gay  Parisian  tumult, 
and  introduced  Walpole,  and  Gray  also  as  his  friend,  to 
the  best  society.     The  very  day  after  their  arrival  they 
dined  at  Lord  Holdernesse's  to  meet  the  Abbe  Prevot- 
d'Exiles,  author  of  that  masterpiece  of   passion,  Manon 
Lescaut,  and  now  in  his  forty-second  year.     It  is  very 
much  to  be  deplored  that  we  do  not  possess  in  any  form 
Gray's  impressions  of  the  illustrious  Frenchmen  with  whom 
he  came  into  habitual  contact  during  the  next  two  months. 
He  merely  mentions   the   famous  comic   actress,   Made- 
moiselle Jeanne  Quinault  "  la  Cadette,"  who  was   even 


li.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  25 

then,  though  in  the  flower  of  her  years,  coquettishly 
threatening  to  leave  the  stage,  and  who  did  actually 
retire,  amid  the  regrets  of  a  whole  city,  before  Gray  came 
back  to  England.  She  reminded  the  young  Englishman 
of  Mrs.  Clive,  the  actress,  but  he  says  nothing  of  those 
famous  Sunday  suppers  at  which  she  presided,  and  at 
which  all  that  was  witty  and  brilliant  in  Paris  was  re- 
hearsed or  invented.  These  meetings,  afterwards  deve- 
loped into  the  sessions  of  the  Societe  du  Bout  du  Banc, 
were  then  only  in  their  infancy;  yet  there,  from  his 
corner  unobserved,  the  little  English  poet  must  have 
keenly  noted  many  celebrities  of  the  hour,  whose  laurels 
were  destined  to  wither  when  his  were  only  beginning  to 
sprout.  There  would  be  found  the  "  most  cruel  of  ama- 
teurs," the  Comte  de  Caylus ;  Voisenon,  still  in  the  flush 
of  his  reputation ;  Moncrif,  the  lover  of  cats,  with  his 
strange  dog-face  j  and  there  or  elsewhere  we  know  that 
Gray  met  and  admired  that  prince  of  frivolous  ingenuities, 
the  redoubtable  Marivaux.  But  of  all  this  his  letters 
tell  us  nothing,  nothing  even  of  the  most  curious  of  his 
friendships,  that  with  Crebillon  fils,  who,  according  to 
Walpole,  was  their  constant  companion  during  their  stay 
in  Paris. 

All  the  critics  of  Gray  have  found  it  necessary  to 
excuse  or  explain  away  that  remarkable  statement  of  his, 
that  "  as  the  paradisaical  pleasures  of  the  Mahometans 
consist  in  playing  upon  the  flute,  etc.,  be  mine  to  read 
eternal  new  romances  of  Marivaux  and  Crebillon."  Mason 
considered  this  very  whimsical,  and  later  editors  have 
hoped  that  it  meant  nothing  at  all.  But  Gray  was  not  a 
man  to  say  what  he  did  not  mean,  even  in  jest.  Such  a 
reasonable  and  unprejudiced  mind  as  his  may  be  credited 
with  a  meaning,   however  paradoxical  the  statement  it 


26  GRAY.  [chap. 

makes.  It  is  quite  certain,  from  various  remarks  scat- 
tered through  his  correspondence,  that  the  literature  of 
the  French  regency,  the  boudoir  poems  and  novels  of  the 
alcove,  gave  him  more  pleasure  than  any  other  form  of 
contemporary  literature.  He  uses  language,  in  speaking 
of  Gresset,  the  author  of  Vert-Vert,  which  contrasts 
curiously  with  his  coldness  towards  Sterne  and  Collins. 
But  above  all,  he  delighted  in  Crebillon ;  hardly  had  he 
arrived  in  Paris,  than  he  sent  West  the  Lettres  de  la 
Marquise  M  *  *  *  au  Comte  de  M*  #  *,  which  had  been 
published  in  1732,  but  which  the  success  of  Tanza'i  et 
Neardane  had  pushed  into  a  new  edition.  The  younger 
Crebillon  at  this  time  was  in  his  thirty-second  year, 
discreet,  confidential,  the  friend  of  every  one,  the  best  com- 
pany in  Paris  ;  half  his  time  spent  in  wandering  over  the 
cheerful  city  that  he  loved  so  much,  the  other  half  given 
to  literature  in  the  company  of  that  strange  colossus,  his 
father,  the  tragic  poet,  the  writing-room  of  this  odd 
couple  being  shared  with  a  menagerie  of  cats  and  dogs 
and  queer  feathered  folk.  Always  a  serviceable  creature, 
and  perhaps  even  already  possessed  with  something  of 
that  Anglomania  which  led  him  at  last  into  a  sort  of 
morganatic  marriage  with  British  aristocracy,  Crebillon 
evidently  did  all  he  could  to  make  Walpole  and  Gray 
happy  in  Paris ;  no  chaperon  could  be  more  fitting  than 
he  to  a  young  Englishman  desirous  of  threading  the 
mazes  of  that  rose-coloured  Parisian  Arcadia  which  had 
survived  the  days  of  the  Regency,  and  had  not  yet  ceased 
to  look  on  Louis  XV.  as  the  Celadon  of  its  pastoral 
valleys.  It  was  a  charming  world  of  fancy  and  caprice  ; 
a  world  of  milky  clouds  floating  in  an  infinite  azure,  and 
bearing  a  mundane  Venus  to  her  throne  on  a  Frenchified 
Cythera.     And  what  strange  figures  were  bound  to  the 


ii.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  27 

golden  car ;  generals,  and  abbes,  and  elderly  academicians, 
laughing  philosophers  and  weeping  tragedians,  a  motley 
crew  united  in  the   universal  culte  du  Tendre,   gliding 
down  a  stream  of  elegance  and  cheerfulness  and  tolerance 
that  was  by  no  means  wholly  ignoble. 
j     All  this,  but  especially  the  elegance  and  the  tolerance, 
I  made  a  deep  impression  upon  the  spirit  of  Gray.    He  came 
from  a  Puritan  country ;  and  was  himself,  like  so  many  of 
our  greatest  men,  essentially  a  puritan  at  heart ;  but  he 
was  too  acute  not  to  observe  where  English  practice  was 
unsatisfactory.     Above  all,  he  seems  to  have  detected  the 
English  deficiency  in  style  and  grace ;  a  deficiency  then, 
in  1739,  far  more  marked  than  it  had  been  half  a  century 
earlier.     He  could  not  but  contrast  the  young  English 
squire,  that  engaging  and  florid  creature,  with  the  bright, 
sarcastic,  sympathetic  companion  of  his  walks  in  Paris, 
not  without  reflecting  that  the  healthier  English  lad  was 
almost  sure  to  develop  into  a  terrible  type  of  fox-hunting 
stupidity  in  middle  life.     He,  for  one,  then,  and  to  the 
end  of  his  days,  would  cast  in  his  lot  with  what  was 
refined  and  ingenious,  and  would  temper  the  robustness 
of  his  race  with  a  little  Gallic  brightness.     Moreover  his 
taste  for  the  novels  of  Marivaux  and  Crebillon,  with  their 
ingenious  analysis  of  emotion,  their  odour  of  musk  and 
ambergris,  their  affectation  of  artless  innocence,  and  their 
quick   parry  of  wit,  was  not  without  excuse,  in  a  man 
framed  as  Gray  was  for  the  more  brilliant  exercises  of 
literature,  and  forced  to  feed,  in  his  own  country,  if  he 
must  read  romances  at  all,  on  the  coarse  rubbish  of  Mrs. 
Behn,  or  Mrs.  Manley.     Curiously  enough  at  that  very 
moment,  Samuel  Richardson  was  preparing  for  the  press 
that  excellent  narrative  of  Pamela  which  was  destined 
to  found  a  great  modem  school  of  fiction  in  England,  a 


28  GRAY.  [chap. 

school  which  was  soon  to  sweep  into  contempt  and 
oblivion  all  the  "  crebillonage-amarivaude  "  which  Gray 
delighted  in,  a  contempt  so  general  that  one  stray  reader 
here  or  there  can  scarcely  venture  to  confess  that  he  still 
finds  the  Hasard  au  coin  du  Feu  very  pleasant  and 
innocent  reading.  We  shall  have  to  refer  once  again  to 
this  subject,  when  we  reach  the  humorous  poems  in  which 
Gray  introduced  into  English  literature  this  rococo  manner. 
f  Gray  became  quite  a  little  fop  in  Paris.  He  complains 
that  the  French  tailor  has  covered  him  with  silk  and 
fringe,  and  has  widened  his  figure  with  buckram,  a  yard 
on  either  side.  His  waistcoat  and  breeches  are  so  tight 
that  he  can  scarcely  breathe  ;  he  ties  a  vast  solitaire 
around  his  neck,  wears  ruffles  at  his  fingers'  ends,  and 
sticks  his  two  arms  into  a  muff.  Thus  made  beautifully 
genteel  he  and  Walpole  rolled  in  their  coach  to  the 
Comedy  and  the  Opera,  visited  Versailles  and  the  sights 
of  Paris,  attended  installations  and  spectacles,  and  saw 
the  best  of  all  that  was  to  be  seen.  Gray  was  absolutely 
delighted  with  his  new  existence ;  "  I  could  entertain 
myself  this  month,"  he  wrote  to  West,  "  merely  with  the 
common  streets  and  the  people  in  them  ;"  and  Walpole, 
who  was  good-nature  itself  during  all  this  early  part  of  the 
tour,  insisted  on  sending  Gray  out  in  his  coach  to  see  all 
the  collections  of  fine  art,  and  other  such  sights  as  were 
not  congenial  to  himself,  since  Horace  Walpole  had  not 
yet  learned  to  be  a  connoisseur.  Gray  occupied  himself 
no  less  with  music,  and  his  letters  to  West  contain  some 
amusing  criticisms  of  French  opera.  The  performers,  he 
says,  "  come  in  and  sing  sentiment  in  lamentable  strains, 
neither  air  nor  recitation ;  only,  to  one's  great  joy,  they 
were  every  now  and  then  interrupted  by  a  dance,  or,  to 
one's  great  sorrow,  by  a  chorus  that  borders  the  stage  from 


ii.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  29 

one  end  to  the  other,  and  screams,  past  all  power  of 
simile  to  represent Imagine,  I  say,  all  this  trans- 
acted by  cracked  voices,  trilling  divisions  upon  two  notes- 
and-a-half,  accompanied  by  an  orchestra  of  hnmstrums, 
and  a  whole  house  more  attentive  than  if  Farinelli  sung, 
and  you  will  almost  have  formed  a  just  idea  of  the  thing." 
And,  again,  later,  he  writes  "  des  miaulemens  et  des 
heurlemens  effroyables,  meles  avec  un  tintamarre  du  dia- 
ble,— voila.  la  musique  Francoise  en  abrege."  At  first 
the  weather  was  extremely  bad,  but  in  May  they  began 
to  enjoy  the  genial  climate  ;  they  took  long  excursions  to 
Versailles  and  Chantilly,  happy  "  to  walk  by  moonlight, 
and  hear  the  ladies  and  the  nightingales  sing." 

On  the  1st  of  June,  in  company  with  Henry  Conway, 
Walpole  and  Gray  left  Paris  and  settled  at  Rheims  for 
three  exquisite  summer  months.  I  fancy  that  these  were 
among  the  happiest  weeks  in  Gray's  life,  the  most  sunny 
and  unconcerned.  As  the  three  friends  came  with  parti- 
cular introductions  from  Lord  Conway,  who  knew  Rheims 
well,  they  were  welcomed  with  great  cordiality  into  all 
the  best  society  of  the  town.  Gray  found  the  provincial 
assemblies  very  stately  and  graceful,  but  without  the  easy 
familiarity  of  Parisian  manners.  The  mode  of  entertain- 
ment was  uniform,  beginning  with  cards,  in  the  midst  of 
which  every  one  rose  to  eat  what  was  called  the  gouter,  a 
service  of  fruits,  cream,  sweetmeats,  crawfish,  and  cheese. 
People  then  sat  down  again  to  cards,  until  they  had  played 
forty  deals,  when  they  broke  up  into  little  parties  for  a 
promenade.  That  this  formality  was  sometimes  set  aside 
we  may  gather  from  a  very  pretty  little  vignette  that  Gray 
slips  into  a  letter  to  his  mother : — 

The  other  evening  we  happened  to  be  got  together  in  a  com- 


30  GRAY.  [chap. 

pany  of  eighteen  people,  men  and  women  of  the  best  fashion 
here,  at  a  garden  in  the  town,  to  walk,  when  one  of  the  ladies 
bethought  herself  of  asking,  Why  should  we  not  sup  here  ? 
Immediately  the  cloth  was  laid  by  the  side  of  a  fountain  under 
the  trees,  and  a  very  elegant  supper  served  up ;  after  which  an- 
other said,  "  Come,  let  us  sing,"  and  directly  began  herself. 
From  singing  we  insensibly  fell  to  dancing,  and  singing  in  a 
round ;  when  somebody  mentioned  the  violins,  and  immediately 
a  company  of  them  was  ordered,  minuets  were  begun  in  the  open 
air,  and  then  came  country  dances,  which  held  till  four  o'clock 
next  morning ;  at  which  hour  the  gayest  lady  then  proposed,  that 
such  as  were  weary  should  get  into  their  coaches,  and  the  rest 
of  them  should  dance  before  them  with  the  music  in  the  van  ; 
and  in  this  manner  we  paraded  through  all  the  principal  streets 
of  the  city,  and  waked  everybody  in  it.  Mr.  Walpole  had  a 
mind  to  make  a  custom  of  the  thing,  and  would  have  given  a 
ball  in  the  same  manner  next  week ;  but  the  women  did  not 
come  into  it ;  so  I  believe  it  will  drop,  and  they  will  return  to 
their  dull  cards  and  usual  formalities. 

Walpole  intended  to  spend  the  winter  of  1739  in  the 
South  of  France,  and  was  therefore  not  unwilling  to  loiter 
by  the  way.  They  thought  to  stay  a  fortnight  at  Eheims, 
but  they  received  a  vague  intimation  that  Lord  Conway 
and  that  prince  of  idle  companions,  the  ever-sparkling 
George  Selwyn,  were  coming,  and  they  hung  on  for  three 
months  in  expectation  of  them.  At  last,  on  the  7th  of 
September,  they  left  Eheims,  and  entered  Dijon  three 
'days  later.  The  capital  of  Burgundy,  with  its  rich  archi- 
tecture and  treasuries  of  art,  made  Gray  regret  the  frivo- 
lous months  they  had  spent  at  Eheims,  while  Walpole, 
who  was  eager  to  set  off,  would  only  allow  him  three  or 
four  days  for  exploration.  On  the  18th  of  September 
they  were  at  Lyons,  and  this  town  became  their  head- 
quarters for  the  next  six  weeks.     The  junction  of  the 


ii.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  31 

rivers  has  provoked  a  multitude  of  conceits,  but  none 
perhaps  so  pretty  as  this  of  Gray's  : — "  The  Rhone  and 
Saone  are  two  people,  who,  though  of  tempers  extremely 
unlike,  think  fit  to  join  hands  here,  and  make  a  little 
party  to  travel  to  the  Mediterranean  in  company  ;  the 
lady  comes  gliding  along  through  the  fruitful  plains  of 
Burgundy,  incredibili  lenitate,  ita  ut  oculis  in  utram 
partem  nuit  judicari  non  possit ;  the  gentleman  runs  all 
rough  and  roaring  down  from  the  mountains  of  Switzer- 
land to  meet  her ;  and  with  all  her  soft  airs  she  likes  him 
never  the  worse  ;  she  goes  through  the  middle  of  the  city 
in  state,  and  he  passes  incog,  without  the  walls,  but  waits 
for  her  a  little  below." 

A  fortnight  later  the  friends  set  out  on  an  excursion 
across  the  mountains,  that  they. might  accompany  Henry 
Conway,  who  was  now  leaving  them,  as  far  as  Geneva. 
They  took  the  longest  road  through  Savoy,  that  they 
might  visit  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  which  impressed 
Gray  very  forcibly  by  the  solitary  grandeur  of  its 
situation.  It  was,  however,  not  on  this  occasion,  but 
two  years  later,  that  he  wrote  his  famous  Alcaic  Ode  in 
the  album  of  the  monastery.  The  friends  slept  as  the  /  Qjt/ 
guests  of  the  fathers,  and  proceeded  next  day  to  Cham-  ^c 
bery,  which  greatly  disappointed  them ;  and  sleeping 
one  night  at  Aix-les-Bains,  which  they  found  deserted, 
and  another  at  Annecy,  they  arrived  at  last  at  Geneva. 
They  stayed  there  a  week,  partly  to  see  Conway  settled, 
and  partly  because  they  found  it  very  bright  and  hospit- 
able, returning  at  last  to  Lyons  through  the  spurs  of  the 
Jura,  and  across  the  plains  of  La  Bresse.  They  found 
awaiting  them  a  letter  from  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  in  which 
he  desired  his  son  to  go  on  to  Italy,  so  they  gladly 
resigned  their  project  of  spending  the  winter  in  France 


32  GRAY.  [chap, 

and  pushed  on  at  once  to  the  foot  of  the  Alps  ;  armed 
against  the  cold  with  "  muffs,  hoods,  and  masks  of  beaver, 
fur  boots,  and  bearskins."  On  the  6th  of  November 
they  descended  into  Italy,  after  a  very  severe  and  painful 
journey  of  a  week's  duration,  through  two  days  of  which 
they  were  hardly  less  frightened  than  Addison  had  been 
during  his  Alpine  adventures  a  generation  earlier.  It 
was  on  the  sixth  day  of  this  journey  that  the  incident 
occurred  which  was  so  graphically  described  both  by 
Gray  and  Walpole,  and  which  is  often  referred  to.  Wal- 
pole  had  a  fat  little  black  spaniel,  called  Tory,  which  he 
was  very  fond  of ;  and  as  this  pampered  creature  was 
trotting  beside  the  ascending  chaise,  enjoying  his  little 
constitutional,  a  young  wolf  sprang  out  of  the  covert  and 
snatched  the  shrieking  favourite  away  from  amongst  the 
carriages  and  servants  before  any  one  had  the  presence  of 
mind  to  draw  a  pistol.  Walpole  screamed  and  wept,  but 
Tory  had  disappeared  for  ever.  Mason  regrets  that  Gray 
did  not  write  a  mock-heroic  poem  on  this  incident,  as  a 
companion  to  the  ode  on  Walpole' s  cat,  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  theme  was  an  excellent  one. 

The  name  of  Addison  has  just  been  mentioned,  and  Wal- 
pole's  remarks  about  the  horrors  of  Alpine  travelling  do 
indeed  savour  of  the  old-fashioned  fear  of  what  was  sublime 
in  nature.  But  Gray's  sentiments  on  the  occasion  were  very 
different,  and  his  letter  to  his  mother  dilates  on  the  beauty 
of  the  crags  and  precipices  in  a  way  that  shows  him  to  have 
been  the  first  of  the  romainnc_Jav^iruJ^-^ature,  since  even 
Rousseau  had  then  -riardlydeveloped  his  later  and  more 
famous  attitude,  and  Vernet  had  only  just  begun  to  con- 
template the  sea  with  ecstasy.  On  the  7th  of  November, 
1739,  the  travellers  had  reached  Turin,  but  among  the 
clean  streets  and  formal  avenues  of  that  prosaic  city,  the 


IX.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  33 

thoughts  of  Gray  were  still  continually  in  the  wonders  he 
had  left  behind  him.     In  a  delightful  letter  to   West, 
J  written  nine  days  later,  he  is  still  dreaming  of  the  Alps. 
"  I  own  I  have  not,  as  yet,  anywhere  met  with  those 
grand  and  simple  works  of  art  that  are  to  amaze  one,  and 
whose  sight  one  is  to  be  the  better  for  j  but  those  of 
nature  have  astonished  me  beyond  expression.     In  our 
little  journey   up   to   the  Grande  Chartreuse    I   do  not 
remember  to  have  gone  ten  paces  without  an  exclamation 
that  there  was  no  restraining ;  not  a  precipice,  not  a  tor- 
rent, not  a  cliff,  but  is  pregnant  with  religion  and  poetry. 
There  are  certain  scenes  that  would  awe  an  atheist  into 
belief,  without  the  help  of  other  argument.     One  need 
not  have  a  very  fantastic  imagination  to  see  spirits  there 
at  noon-day.     You  have  Death  perpetually  before  your 
eyes,  only  so  far  removed  as  to  compose  the  mind  without 
frighting  it.     I  am  well  persuaded  St.  Bruno  was  a  man  of 
no  common  genius,  to  choose  such  a  situation  for  his 
retirement ;  and  perhaps  I  should  have  been  a  disciple  of 
his,  had  I  been  born  in  his  time."     It  is  hard  to  cease 
quoting,  all  this  letter  being  so  new,  and  beautiful,  and 
suggestive ;  but  perhaps  enough  has  been  given  to  show 
in  what  terms  and  on  what  occasion  the  picturesqueness  of 
Switzerland  was  first  discovered.     At  the  same  time  the 
innovator  concedes  that  Mont  Cenis  does  perhaps  abuse 
its  privilege  of  being  frightful.     Among  the  precipices 
Gray  read  Livy,  Nives  coslo  prope  immistce,  but  when  the 
chaise  drove  down  into  the  sunlit  plains  of  Italy,  he  laid 
that  severe  historian  aside,  and  plunged  into  the  pages  of 
Silius  Italicus. 

On  the  18th  of  November  they  passed  on  to  Genoa, 
which  Gray  particularly  describes  as  "  a  vast  semicircular 
basin,  full  of  fine  blue  sea,  and  vessels  of  all  sorts  and 

D 


34  GRAY.  tCHAP. 

sizes,  some  sailing  out,  some  coming  in,  and  others  at 
anchor ;  and  all  round  it  palaces,  and  churches  peeping 
over  one  another's  heads,  gardens,  and  marble  terraces  full 
of  orange  and  cypress  trees,  fountains  and  trellis-works 
r  covered  with  vines,  which  altogether  compose  the  grandest 
of  theatres."  The  music  in  Italy  was  a  feast  to  him,  and 
from  this  time  we  may  date  that  careful  study  of  Italian 
music  which  occupied  a  great  part  of  the  ensuing  year. 
Ten  days  at  Genoa  left  them  deeply  in  love  with  it,  and 
loth  to  depart ;  but  they  wished  to  push  on,  and  crossing 
the  mountains  they  found  themselves  within  three  days 
at  Piacenza,  and  so  at  Parma ;  out  of  which  city  they 
were  locked  on  a  cold  winter's  night,  and  were  only  able 
to  gain  admittance  by  an  ingenious  stratagem  which 
amused  them  very  much,  but  which  they  have  neglected 
to  record.  They  greatly  enjoyed  the  Correggios  in  this 
place,  for  Horace  Walpole  was  now  learning  to  be  a  con- 
noisseur, and  then  they  proceeded  to  Bologna,  where  they 
spent  twelve  days  in  seeing  the  sights.  They  found  it 
very  irksome  to  be  without  introductions,  especially  after 
the  hospitality  which  they  had  enjoyed  in  France,  and 
as  it  was  winter  they  could  only  see,  in  Gray's  words,  the 
skeleton  of  Italy.  He  was  at  least  able  to  observe  "  very 
public  and  scandalous  doings  between  the  vine  and  the 
elm-trees,  and  how  the  olive-trees  are  shocked  there-upon." 
I  It  is  also  particularly  pleasant  to  learn  that  he  himself  was 
'.  "  grown  as  fat  as  a  hog  f  he  was,  in  fact,  perfectly  happy 
and  well,  perhaps  for  the  only  time  in  his  life. 

They  crossed  the  Apennines  on  the  15th  of  the  month, 
and  descended  through  a  winding-sheet  of  mist  into  the 
streets  of  Florence,  where  Mr.  Horace  Mann's  servant  met 
them  at  the  gates,  and  conducted  them  to  his  house, 
which,  with  a  certain  interval,  was  to  be  their  home  for 


II.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  35 

fifteen  months.  Horace  Mann  was  a  dull  letter-writer, 
but  he  seems  to  have  been  a  very  engaging  and  unwearying 
companion.  Gray,  a  man  not  easily  pleased,  pronounced 
him  "the  best  and  most  obliging  person  in  the  world." 
He  was  then  resident,  and  afterwards  envoy  extraordinary 
at  the  Court  of  Tuscany,  and  retains  a  place  in  history  as 
the  correspondent  of  Horace  Walpole  through  nearly  half 
a  century  of  undivided  friendship.  Here  again  the  travel- 
stained  youths  had  the  pleasures  of  society  offered  to 
them,  and  Gray  could  encase  himself  again  in  silk  and 
buckram,  and  wear  ruffles  at  the  tips  of  his  fingers. 
Moreover,  his  mind,  the  most  actively  acquisitive  then 
stirring  in  Europe,  could  engage  once  more  in  its  en- 
chanting exercises,  and  store  up  miscellaneous  information 
with  unflagging  zeal  in  a  thousand  nooks  of  brain  and  note- 
book. Music,  painting,  and  statuary  occupied  him  chiefly, 
and  his  unpublished  catalogues,  not  less  strikingly  than 
his  copious  printed  notes,  show  the  care  and  assiduity  of 
his  research.  His  Criticisms  on  Architecture  and  Painting 
in  Italy,  is  not  an  amusing  treatise,  but  it  is  without  many 
of  the  glaring  faults  of  the  aesthetic  dissertations  of  the 
age.  The  remarks  about  antique  sculpture  are  often  very 
just  and  penetrative,  as  line  sometimes  as  those  exquisite 
notes  by  Shelley,  which  first  saw  the  light  in  1880.  Some 
i  of  his  views  about  modern  masters,  too,  show  the  native 
i  propriety  of  his  taste,  and  his  entire  indifference  to  con- 
temporary judgment.  For  Caravaggio,  for  instance,  then 
at  the  height  of  his  vogue,  he  has  no  patience  ;  although, 
in  common  with  all  critics  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
all  human  beings  till  about  a  generation  ago,  he  finds  Guido 
inexpressibly  brilliant  and  harmonious.  It  is,  however, 
chiefly  interesting  to  us  to  notice  that  in  these  copious 
notes  on  painting  Gray  distinguishes  himself  from  other 


J 


36  GRAY.  [chap. 

writers  of  his  time  by  his  simple  and  purely  artistic  mode  of 
considering  what  is  presented  to  him,  every  other  critic,  as 
far  as  I  remember,  down  to  Lessing  and  Winckelmann, 
being  chiefly  occupied  with  rhetorical  definitions  of  the 
action  upon  the  human  mind  of  art  in  the  abstract.  Gray 
scarcely  mentions  a  single  work,  however,  precedent  to  the 
age  of  Eaphael ;  and  it  will  not  do  to  insist  too  strongly 
upon  his  independence  of  the  prejudices  of  his  time. 

In  music  he  seems  to  have  been  still  better  occupied. 
He  was  astonished,  during  his  stay  in  Florence,  at  the 
beauty  and  originality  of  the  new  school  of  Italian  com- 
posers, at  that  time  but  little  known  in  England.  He 
seems  to  have  been  particularly  struck  with  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  who  was  then  just  dead,  and  with  Bononcini  and 
the  German  Hasse,  who  were  still  alive.  At  Naples  a  few 
months  later  he  found  Leonardo  Leo,  and  was  attracted 
by  his  genius.  But  the  full  ardour  of  his  admiration  was 
reserved  for  the  works  of  G.  B.  Pergolesi,  whose  elevation 
above  the  other  musicians  of  his  age  Gray  was  the  first  to 
observe  and  assert.  Pergolesi,  who  had  died  four  years 
before,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  was  entirely  unknown  out- 
side Tuscany ;  and  to  the  English  poet  belongs  the  praise, 
it  is  said,  of  being  the  first  to  bring  a  collection  of  his 
pieces  to  London,  and  to  obtain  for  this  great  master  a 
hearing  in  British  concert-rooms.  Gray  was  one  of  the 
few  poets  who  have  possessed  not  merely  an  ear  for  music, 
but  considerable  executive  skill.  Mason  tells  us  that  he 
enjoyed,  probably  at  this  very  time,  instruction  on  the 
harpsichord  from  the  younger  Scarlatti,  but  his  main  gift 
was  for  vocal  music.  He  had  a  small,  but  very  clear  and  pure 
voice,  and  was  much  admired  for  his  singing  in  his  youth, 
but  during  later  years  was  so  shy  that  Walpole  "never  could 
but  once  prevail  on  him  to  give  a  proof  of  it ;  and  then  it 


ii.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  Si 

was  with  so  much  pain  to  himself,  that  it  gave  Walpole  no 
manner  of  pleasure."  In  after-years  he  had  a  harpsichord 
in  his  rooms  at  college,  and  continued  to  cultivate  this 
sentimental  sort  of  company  in  his  long  periods  of  soli- 
tude. Gray  formed  a  valuable  collection  of  MS.  music 
while  he  was  in  Italy  j  it  consisted  of  nine  large  volumes, 
bound  in  vellum,  and  was  enriched  by  a  variety  of  notes 
in  Gray's  handwriting. 

r  It  was  at  Florence,  on  the  12th  of  March,  1740,  that 
Gray  took  into  his  head  to  commence  a  correspondence 
with  his  old  schoolfellow,  Dr.  Thomas  Wharton  ("my 
dear,  dear  Wharton,  which  is  a '  dear '  more  than  I  give  any- 
body else "),  who  afterwards  became  fellow  of  Pembroke 
Hall,  and  one  of  Gray's  staunchest  and  most  sympathetic 
friends.  To  the  biographer  of  the  poet,  moreover,  the 
name  of  Wharton  must  be  ever  dear,  since  it  was  to  him 
that  the  least  reserved  and  most  personal  of  all  Gray's  early 
letters  were  indited.  This  Dr.  Wharton  was  a  quiet,  good 
man,  with  no  particular  genius  or  taste,  but  dowered  with 
that  delightful  tact  and  sympathetic  attraction  which  are 
the  lode-star  of  irritable  and  weary  genius.  He  was  by  a 
few  months  Gray's  junior,  and  survived  him  three  and 
twenty  years,  indolently  intending,  it  is  said,  to  the  last, 
to  collect  his  memories  of  his  great  friend,  but  dying  in 
his  eightieth  year  so  suddenly  as  to  be  incapable  of  any 
preparation.  In  this  his  first  letter  to  Wharton  Gray 
mentions  the  death  of  Pope  Clement  XII.,  which  had  oc- 
curred about  a  month  before,  and  states  his  intention  to 
be  at  Rome  in  time  to  see  the  coronation  of  his  successor, 
which  however,  as  it  happened,  was  delayed  six  months. 
So  little  however  were  Walpole  and  Gray  prepared  for 
this,  that  they  set  out  in  the  middle  of  March  1740  in 
great  fear  lest  they  should  be  too  late,  and  entered  Rome 


38  GRAY.  [chap. 

on  the  31st  of  that  month.  They  found  the  conclave  of 
cardinals  sitting  and  like  to  sit ;  and  they  prepared  them- 
selves to  enjoy  Rome  in  the  meanwhile.  The  magnificence 
of  the  ancient  city  infinitely  surpassed  Gray's  expectation, 
but  he  found  modern  Rome  and  its  inhabitants  very  con- 
temptible and  disgusting.  There  was  no  society  among 
the  Roman  nobles,  who  pushed  parsimony  to  an  extreme, 
and  showed  not  the  least  hospitality.  "  In  short,  child," 
(Walpole  says  to  West,  on  the  16th  of  April,)  "  after  sunset 
one  passes  one's  time  here  very  ill ;  and  if  I  did  not  wish  for 
you  in  the  mornings,  it  would  be  no  compliment  to  tell  you 
that  I  do  in  the  evening."  From  Tivoli,  a  month  later, 
Gray  writes  West  a  very  contemptuous  description  of  the 
artificial  cascades  and  cliffs  of  the  Duke  of  Modena's 
palace-gardens  there ;  but  a  few  days  afterwards  at  Alba 
and  Frascati,  he  was  inspired  in  a  gentler  mood  with  the 
Alcaic  Ode  to  Favonius,  beginning  "  Mater  rosarum."  Of 
the  same  date  is  a  letter  laughing  at  West,  who  had  made 
some  extremely  classical  allusions  in  liis  correspondence, 
and  who  is  indulged  with  local  colour  to  his  heart's 
content. 

I  am  to-day  just  returned  from  Alba,  a  good  deal  fatigued,  for 
you  know  (from  Statius)  that  the  Appian  is  somewhat  tiresome. 
We  dined  at  Pompey's  ;  he  indeed  was  gone  for  a  few  days  to 
his  Tusculan,  but,  by  the  care  of  his  villicus,  we  made  an  ad- 
mirable meal.  We  had  the  dugs  of  a  pregnant  sow,  a  peacock, 
a  dish  of  thrushes,  a  noble  scarus  just  fresh  from  the  Tyrrhene, 
and  some  conchylia  of  the  Lake,  with  garum  sauce.  For  my  part 
I  never  ate  better  at  Lucullus's  table.  We  drank  half-a-dozen 
cyathi  apiece  of  ancient  Alban  to  Pholoe's  health ;  and,  after 
bathing,  and  playing  an  hour  at  ball,  we  mounted  our  essedum 
again,  and  proceeded  up  the  mount  to  the  temple.  The  priests 
there  entertained  us  with  an  account  of  a  wonderful  shower  of 
birds'  eggs,  that  had  fallen  two  days  before,  which  had  no  sooner 


ii.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  39 

touched  the  ground,  but  they  were  converted  into  gudgeons ;  as 
also  that  the  night  past,  a  dreadful  voice  had  been  heard  out  of 
the  Adytum,  which  spoke  Greek  during  a  full  half-hour,  but 
nobody  understood  it.  But  quitting  my  Romanities,  to  your 
great  joy  and  mine,  let  me  tell  you  in  plain  English  that  we 
come  from  Albano. 

Some  entertainments  Gray  had  at  Rome.  He  mentions 
one  ball  at  which  he  performed  the  part  of  the  mouse  at 
the  party.  The  chief  virtuosa  of  the  hour,  La  Diamantina, 
played  on  the  violin,  and  Giovannino  and  Pasquelini  sang. 
All  the  secular  grand  monde  of  Rome  was  there,  and 
there  Gray,  from  the  corner  where  he  sat  regaling  himself 
with  iced  fruits,  watched  the  object  of  his  hearty  disap- 
proval, the  English  Pretender,  "  displaying  his  rueful 
length  of  person."  Gray's  hatred  of  the  Stuarts  was  one 
of  his  few  pronounced  political  sentiments,  and  while  at 
Rome  he  could  not  resist  making  a  contemptuous  jest  of 
them  in  a  letter  which  he  believed  that  James  would  open. 
He  says,  indeed,  that  all  letters  sent  or  received  by 
English  people  in  Rome  were  at  that  time  read  by  the 
Pretender.  In  June,  as  the  cardinals  could  not  make  up 
their  minds,  the  young  men  decided  to  wait  no  longer, 
and  proceeded  southwards  to  Terracina,  Capua,  and 
Naples.  On  the  17th  of  June  they  visited  the  remains  of 
Herculaneum,  then  only  just  exposed  and  identified,  and 
before  the  end  of  the  month  they  went  back  to  Rome. 
There,  still  finding  that  no  Pope  was  elected,  and  weary 
of  the  dreariness  and  formality  of  that  great  city,  Walpole 
determined  to  return  to  Florence.  They  had  now  been 
absent  from  home  and  habitually  thrown  upon  one  another 
for  entertainment  during  nearly  fifteen  months,  and  their 
friendship  had  hitherto  shown  no  abatement.  But  they 
had  arrived  at  that  point  of  familiarity  when  a  very  little 


40  GRAY.  [chap. 

disagreement  is  sufficient  to  produce  a  quarrel.  No  such 
serious  falling-out  happened  for  nearly  a  year  more,  but  we 
find  Gray,  whose  note-books  were  inexhaustible,  a  little 
peevish  at  being  forced  to  leave  the  treasures  of  Koine  so 
soon.  However,  Florence  was  very  enjoyable.  They  took 
up  their  abode  once  more  in  the  house  of  Horace  Mann, 
where  they  looked  down  into  the  Arno  from  their  bed- 
room windows,  and  could  resort  at  a  moment's  notice  to 
the  marble  bridge,  to  hear  music,  eat  iced  fruits,  and  sup 
by  moonlight.  It  is  a  place,  Gray  says,  "  excellent  to 
employ  all  one's  animal  sensations  in,  but  utterly  contrary 
to  one's  rational  powers.  I  have  struck  a  medal  upon  my- 
self ;  the  device  is  thus  0,  and  the  motto  Nihilissimo, 
which  I  take  in  the  most  concise  manner  to  contain  a  full 
account  of  my  person,  sentiments,  occupations,  and  late 
glorious  successes.  We  get  up  at  twelve  o'clock,  break- 
fast till  three,  dine  till  four,  sleep  till  six,  drink  cooling 
liquors  till  eight,  go  to  the  bridge  till  ten,  sup  till  two, 
and  so  sleep  till  twelve  again." 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  laziness,  however,  the  business 
of  literature  recurred  to  his  thoughts.  He  wrote  some 
short  things  in  Latin,  then  a  fragment  of  sixty  hexameter 
verses  on  the  Gaurus,  and  then  set  about  a  very  ambitious 
didactic  epic  De  Principiis  Cogitandi.  It  is  a  curious  com- 
mentary on  the  small  bulk  of  Gray's  poetical  productions 
to  point  out  that  this  Latin  poem,  only  two  fragments  of 
which  were  ever  written,  is  considerably  the  longest  of  his 
writings  in  verse.  As  we  now  possess  it,  it  was  chiefly 
written  in  Florence  during  the  summer  of  1 740 ;  some  passages 
were  added  at  Stoke  in  1742 ;  but  by  that  time  Gray  had  de- 
termined, like  other  learned  Cambridge  poets,  Spenser  and 
Milton,  to  bend  to  the  vulgar  ear,  and  leave  his  Latin  behind 
him.      The  De  Principiis  Cogitandi  is  now  entirely  neg- 


il]  THE  GRAND  TOUR.  41 

lected,  and  at  no  time  attracted  much  curiosity ;  yet  it  is  a 
notable  production  in  its  way.  It  was  an  attempt  to  crys- 
tallize the  philosophy  of  Locke,  for  which  Gray  entertained 
the  customary  reverence  of  his  age,  inLucretian  hexameters. 
How  the  Soul  begins  to  Know ;  by  what  primary  Notions 
Mnemosyne  opens  her  succession  of  thoughts,  and  her 
slender  chain  of  ideas  ;  how  Eeason  contrives  to  augment 
her  slow  empire  in  the  natural  breast  of  man  ;  and  how 
anger,  sorrow,  fear  and  anxious  care  are  implanted  there, 
of  these  things  he  applies  himself  to  sing ;  and  do  not 
thou  disdain  the  singer,  thou  glory,  thou  unquestioned 
second  luminary  of  the  English  race,  thou  unnamed  spirit 
of  John  Locke.  With  the  exception  of  one  episode  in 
which  he  compares  the  human  mind  in  reverie  to  a  Hama- 
dryad who  wanders  in  the  woodland,  and  is  startled  to 
find  herself  mirrored  in  a  pool,  the  plan  of  this  poem  left 
no  scope  for  fancy  or  fine  imagery ;  the  theme  is  treated 
with  a  certain  rhetorical  dignity,  but  the  poet  has  been  so 
much  occupied  with  the  matter  in  hand,  that  his  ideas 
have  suffered  some  congestion.  Nevertheless  he  is  himself, 
and  not  Virgil  or  Ovid  or  Lucretius,  and  this  alone  is 
no  small  praise  for  a  writer  of  modern  Latin  verse. 

If  the  De  Principiis  Cogitandi  had  been  published  when 
it  was  written,  it  is  probable  that  it  would  have  won  some 
measure  of  instant  celebrity  for  its  author,  but  the  undi- 
luted conclusions  of  Locke  were  no  longer  interesting  in  a 
second  hand  form  in  1774,  when  they  had  already  been 
subjected  to  the  expansions  of  Hume  and  the  criticisms  of 
Leibnitz.  Nor  was  Gray  at  all  on  the  wave  of  philo- 
sophical thought ;  he  seems  no  less  indifferent  to  Berkeley's 
Principles  of  Human  Knowledge  than  he  is  unaware  of 
Hume's  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  which  had  been 
printed  in  1739,  soon  after  Gray  left  England.     This  Latin 


42  GRAY.  [chap. 

epic  was  a  distinct  false   start,  but   he    did   not  totally 
abandon  the  hope  of  completing  it  until  1746. 

In  August  1740  the  friends  went  over  to  Bologna 
for  a  week,  and  on  their  return  had  the  mortification  to 
learn  that  a  Pope,  Benedict  XIV.,  had  been  elected  while 
they  were  within  four  days'  journey  of  Rome.  They 
began  to  think  of  home ;  there  were  talks  of  taking  a 
felucca  over  from  Leghorn  to  Marseilles,  or  of  crossing 
through  Germany  by  Venice  and  the  Tyrol.  Florence 
they  began  to  find,  "  one  of  the  dullest  cities  in  Italy," 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  began  to  be  on  very 
strained  and  uncomfortable  terms  with  one  another.  They 
had  the  grace,  however,  absolutely  to  conceal  it  from 
other  people,  and  to  the  very  last  each  of  them  wrote  to 
West  without  the  least  hint  of  want  of  confidence  in  the 
other.  On  the  24th  of  April,  1741,  Gray  and  Walpole 
set  off  from  Florence,  and  spent  a  few  days  in  Bologna  to 
hear  La  Viscontina  sing  ;  from  Bologna  they  proceeded  to 
Reggio,  and  there  occurred  the  famous  quarrel  which  has 
perhaps  been  more  often  discussed  than  any  other  fact 
in  Gray's  life.  It  has  been  said  that  he  discovered  Wal- 
pole opening  a  letter  addressed  to  Gray,  or  perhaps  written 
by  him,  to  see  if  anything  unpleasant  about  himself  were 
said  in  it,  and  that  he  broke  away  from  him  with  scathing 
anger  and  scorn,  casting  Walpole  off  for  ever,  and  at 
once  continuing  his  journey  to  Venice  alone.  But  this 
is  really  little  more  than  conjecture.  Both  the  friends 
were  very  careful  to  keep  their  counsel,  and  within  three 
years  the  breach  was  healed.  One  thing  is  certain,  that 
Walpole  was  the  offender.  When  Gray  was  dead  and 
Mason  was  writing  his  life,  Walpole  insisted  that  this 
fact  should  be  stated,  although  he  very  reasonably  de- 
clined to  go  into  particulars  for  the  public.     He  wrote  a 


ii.]  THE  GKAND  TOUK.  43 

little  paragraph  for  Mason,  taking  the  blame  upon  him- 
self, but  added  for  the  biographer's  private  information  a 
longer  and  more  intelligible  account,  saying  that  "  while 
one  is  living,  it  is  not  pleasant  to  read  one's  private 
quarrels  discussed  in  magazines  and  newspapers,"  but 
desiring  that  Mason  would  preserve  this  particular 
account,  that  it  might  be  given  to  posterity.  But  Wal- 
pole  lived  on  until  1797,  and  by  a  singular  coincidence 
Mason,  who  was  so  much  younger,  only  survived  him  a 
few  days.  Accordingly  there  was  a  delay  in  giving  this 
passage  to  the  world,  and  though  it  is  known  to  students 
of  Horace  Walpole's  Correspondence  y  it  has  never  taken 
the  authoritative  place  it  deserves  in  Gray's  life.  It  is 
all  we  possess  in  the  way  of  direct  evidence,  and  it  does 
great  credit  no  less  to  Walpole's  candour  than  to  his 
experience  of  the  human  heart.  He  wrote  to  Mason 
(March  2,  1773)  :— 

I  am  conscious  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  differences  between 
Gray  and  me  the  fault  was  mine.  I  was  too  young,  too  fond  of 
my  own  diversions,  nay,  I  do  not  doubt,  too  much  intoxicated 
by  indulgence,  vanity,  and  the  insolence  of  my  situation  as  Prime 
Minister's  son,  not  to  have  been  inattentive  and  insensible  to  the 
feelings  of  one  I  thought  below  me ;  of  one,  I  blush  to  say  it, 
that  I  knew  was  obliged  to  me ;  of  one  whom  presumption  and 
folly,  perhaps,  made  me  deem  not  my  superior  then  in  parts, 
though  I  have  since  felt  my  infinite  inferiority  to  him.  I  treated 
him  insolently  ;  he  loved  me,  and  I  did  not  think  he  did.  I 
reproached  him  with  the  difference  between  us.  when  he  acted 
from  convictions  of  knowing  he  was  my  superior.  I  often  dis- 
regarded his  wishes  of  seeing  places,  which  I  would  not  quit 
other  amusements  to  visit,  though  I  offered  to  send  him  to 
them  without  me.  Forgive  me,  if  I  say  that  his  temper  was 
not  conciliating ;  at  the  same  time  that  I  will  confess  to  you 
that  he  acted  a  more  friendly  part,  had  I  had  the  sense  to  take 


44  GEAY.  [chap. 

advantage  o.f  it,  he  freely  told  me  of  my  faults.  I  declared  I  did 
not  desire  to  hear  them,  nor  would  correct  them.  You  will  not 
wonder  that  with  the  dignity  of  his  spirit,  and  the  obstinate 
carelessness  of  mine,  the  breach  must  have  grown  wider  till  we 
became  incompatible. 

This  is  the  last  word  on  the  subject  of  the  quarrel, 
and  after  a  statement  so  generous,  frank  and  lucid,  it 
only  remains  to  remind  the  reader  that  these  were  lads 
of  twenty-three  and  twenty-four  respectively,  that  they 
had  been  thrown  far  too  exclusively  and  too  long  on  one 
another  for  entertainment,  and  that  probably  Walpole  is 
too  hard  upon  himself  in  desiring  to  defend  Gray. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  trace  in  his  letters  or  in  Gray's 
of  any  rudeness  on  Walpole's  part.  The  main  point  is 
that  the  quarrel  was  made  up  in  1744,  and  that  after 
some  coldness  on  Gray's  side,  they  became  as  intimate 
as  ever  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives. 

Walpole  stayed  at  Eeggio,  and  Gray's  heart  would 
have  stirred  with  remorse  had  he  known  that  his  old 
friend  was  even  then  sickening  for  a  quinsy,  of  which 
he  might  have  died,  if  the  excellent  Joseph  Spence, 
Oxford  professor  of  Poetry  and  the  friend  of  Pope,  had 
not  happened  to  be  passing  through  Eeggio  with  Lord 
Lincoln,  and  had  not  given  up  his  whole  time  to  nursing 
him.  Meanwhile  the  unconscious  Gray,  sore  with  pride, 
passed  on  to  Venice,  where  he  spent  two  months,  in  the 
company  of  a  Mr.  Whithead  and  a  Mr.  Chute.  In  July 
he  hired  a  courier,  passed  leisurely  through  the  north  of 
Italy,  visiting  Padua  and  Yerona,  reached  Turin  on  the 
15th  of  August,  and  began  to  cross  the  Alps  next  day. 
He  stayed  once  more  at  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  and  in- 
scribed in  the  Album  of  the  Fathers  his  famous  Alcaic 
Ode,  beginning  "  Oh  Tu,  severi  Eeligio  loci,"  which  is 


ii.]  THE  GRAND  TOUR,  45 

the  best  known  and  practically  the  last  of  his  Latin 
poems.  In  this  little  piece  of  twenty  lines  we  first  re- 
cognize that  nicety  of  expression,  that  delicate  lapidary 
style,  that  touch  of  subdued  romantic  sentiment,  which 
distinguish  the  English  poetry  of  Gray ;  while  it  is 
perhaps  not  fantastic  to  detect  in  its  closing  lines  the 
first  dawn  of  those  ideas  which  he  afterwards  expanded 
into  the  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard.  The  original 
MS.  in  the  album  became  an  object  of  great  interest  to 
visitors  to  the  hospice  after  Gray's  death,  and  was  highly 
prized  by  the  fathers.  It  exists,  however,  no  longer ;  it 
was  destroyed  by  a  rabble  from  Grenoble  during  the 
French  Revolution.  Gray  reached  Lyons  on  the  25th  of 
August,  and  returned  to  London  on  the  1st  of  Septem- 
ber, 1741,  after  an  absence  from  England  of  exactly  two 
years  and  five  months.  Walpole,  being  cured  of  his 
complaint,  arrived  in  England  ten  days  later.  To  a 
good-natured  letter  from  Henry  Conway,  suggesting  a 
renewal  of  intimacy  between  the  friends,  Gray  returned 
an  answer  of  the  coldest  civility,  and  Horace  Walpole 
now  disappears  from  our  narrative  for  three  years. 


CHAPTER  III. 

STOKE-POGIS — DEATH    OF    WEST — FIRST    ENGLISH    POEMS. 

On  his  return  from  Italy  Gray  found  his  father  lying  very 
ill,  exhausted  by  successive  attacks  of  gout,  and  unable 
to  rally  from  them.  Two  months  later,  on  the  6th  of 
November,  1741,  he  died  in  a  paroxysm  of  the  disease. 
His  last  act  had  been  to  squander  his  fortune,  which 
seems  to  have  remained  until  that  time  almost  unimpaired, 
on  building  a  country-house  at  Wanstead.  Not  only 
had  he  not  written  to  tell  his  son  of  this  adventure,  but 
he  had  actually  contrived  to  conceal  it  from  his  wife. 
Mason  is  not  correct  in  saying  that  it  became  necessary  to 
sell  this  house  immediately  after  Philip  Gray's  death,  or 
that  it  fetched  2000/.  less  than  it  had  cost ;  it  remained 
in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Gray.  With  the  ruins  of  a 
fortune  Mrs.  Gray  and  her  sister,  Mary  Antrobus,  seem  to 
have  kept  house  for  a  year  in  Cornhill,  till,  at  the  death 
of  their  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Jonathan  Rogers,  on  the  21st 
of  October,  1742,  they  joined  their  widowed  sister  Anna 
in  her  house  at  Stoke-Pogis,  in  Buckinghamshire.  During 
these  months  they  wound  up  their  private  business  in 
Cornhill,  and  disposed  of  their  shop  on  tolerably  advan- 
tageous terms ;  and  apparently  Gray  first  imagined  that 
the  family  property  would  be  enough  to  provide  amply 
for  him  also.     Accordingly  he  began  the  study  of  the  law, 


ch.  in.]  STOKE-POGIS.  47 

that  being  the  profession  for  which  he  had  been  originally- 
intended.  For  six  months  or  more  he  seems  to  have 
stayed  in  London,  applying  himself  rather  languidly  to 
common  law,  and  giving  his  real  thoughts  and  sympathies 
to  those  who  demanded  them  most,  his  mother  and  his 
unfortunate  friend  Eichard  West.  The  latter,  indeed,  he 
found  in  a  miserable  condition  ;  in  June  1740  that  young 
man,  having  lived  at  the  Temple  till  he  was  sick  of  it, 
left  chambers,  finding  that  neither  the  prestige  of  his 
grandfather,  nor  the  reputation  of  his  uncle,  Sir  Thomas 
Burnet,  advanced  him  at  all  in  their  profession.  He  was 
without  heart  in  his  work,  his  talents  were  not  drawn  out 
in  the  legal  direction,  and  his  affectionate  and  somewhat 
feminine  nature  suffered  from  loneliness  and  want  of  con- 
genial society.  He  had  hoped  that  Walpole  would  be 
able  to  find  him  a  post  in  the  diplomatic  service,  or  in 
the  army,  but  this  was  not  possible.  Gray  strongly  dis- 
approved of  the  step  West  took  in  leaving  the  Temple, 
and  wrote  him  from  Florence  a  letter  full  of  kindly  and 
cordial  good  sense ;  but  when  he  arrived  in  London  he 
found  West  in  a  far  more  broken  condition  of  mind  and 
body  than  he  had  anticipated.  In  extreme  agitation 
West  confided  to  his  friend  a  terrible  secret  which 
he  had  discovered,  and  which  Gray  preserved  in  silence 
until  the  close  of  his  life,  when  he  told  it  to  Norton 
Nicholls.  It  is  a  painful  story  which  need  not  be 
repeated  here,  but  which  involved  the  reputation  of 
West's  mother  with  the  name  of  his  late  father's  secre- 
tary, a  Mr.  Williams,  whom  she  finally  married  when  her 
son  was  dead.  West  had  not  the  power  to  rally  from 
this  shock,  and  the  comfort  of  Gray's  society  only  slightly 
delayed  the  end.  In  March  1742  he  was  obliged  to 
leave  town,  and  went   to   stay  with   a   friend  at  Popes, 


48  GRAY.  [chap. 

near  Hatfield,   Herts,   where  he  lingered  three  months, 
and  died. 

The  winter  which  Gray  and  "West  spent  together  in 
London  was  remarkable  in  the  career  of  the  former  as 
the  beginning  of  his  most  prolific  year  of  poetical  compo- 
sition, a  vocal  year  to  be  followed  by  six  of  obstinate 
silence.  The  first  original  production  in  English  verse 
was  the  fragment  of  a  tragedy  of  Agrippina,  of  which  one 
complete  scene,  and  a  few  odd  lines,  have  been  preserved 
in  his  works.  In  this  attempt  at  the  drama  he  was 
inspired  by  Kacine,  and  neither  Addison,  nor  Aaron  Hill, 
nor  James  Thomson,  had  contrived  to  be  more  cold  or 
academic  a  playwright.  The  subject,  which  had  been 
treated  in  tragedy  more  than  a  century  earlier  by  May, 
was  well  adapted  for  stately  stage-effect,  and  the  scheme 
of  Gray's  play,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  was  not  without 
interest.  But  he  was  totally  unfitted  to  write  for  the 
boards,  and  even  the  beauty  of  versification  in  Agrippina 
cannot  conceal  from  us  for  a  moment  its  ineptitude.  All 
that  exists  of  the  play  is  little  else  than  a  soliloquy  in 
which  the  Empress  defies  the  rage  of  Nero,  and  shows 
that  she  possesses 

A  heart  that  glows  with  the  pure  Julian  fire, 

by  daring  her  son  to  the  contest : 

Around  thee  call 
The  gilded  swarm  that  wantons  in  the  sunshine 
Of  thy  full  favour ;  Seneca  be  there 
In  gorgeous  phrase  of  laboured  eloquence 
To  dress  thy  plea,  and  Burrhus  strengthen  it 
With  his  plain  soldier's  oath,  and  honest  seeming. 
Against  thee  -  liberty  and  Agrippina  ! 
The  world  the  prize  !  and  fair  befall  the  victors  ! 


in.]  STOKE-POGIS.  49 

As  a  study  in  blank  verse  Agrippina  shows  the  result  of 
long  apprenticeship  to  the  ancients,  and  marches  with  a 
sharp  and  dignified  step  that  reminds  the  reader  more  of 
Landor  than  of  any  other  dramatist.  In  all  other  essen- 
tials, however,  the  tragedy  must  be  considered,  like  the 
didactic  epic,  a  false  start ;  but  Gray  was  now  very  soon 
to  learn  his  real  vocation. 

The  opening  scene  of  the  tragedy  was  sent  down  into 
Hertfordshire  to  amuse  West,  who  seemed  at  first  to  have 
recovered  his  spirits,  and  who  sat  "  purring  by  the  fireside, 
in  his  arm-chair,  with  no  small  satisfaction."  He  was 
able  to  busy  himself  with  literature,  delighting  in  the 
new  book  of  the  Dunciad,  and  reading  Tacitus  for  the 
first  time.  His  cool  reception  of  the  latter  roused  Gray 
to  defend  his  favourite  historian  with  great  vigour. 
"  Pray  do  not  imagine,"  he  says,  "  that  Tacitus,  of  all 
authors  in  the  world,  can  be  tedious  ....  Yet  what  I 
admire  in  him  above  all  is  his  detestation  of  tyranny,  and 
the  high  spirit  of  liberty  that  every  now  and  then  breaks 
out,  as  it  were,  whether  he  would  or  no."  Poor  West 
on  the  4th  of  April,  racked  by  an  "  importunissima 
tussis,"  declines  to  do  battle  against  Tacitus,  but  attacks 
Agrippina  with  a  frankness  and  a  critical  sagacity  which 
slew  that  ill-starred  tragedy  on  the  spot.  It  is  evident 
that  Gray  had  no  idea  of  West's  serious  condition,  for  he 
rallies  him  on  being  the  first  who  ever  made  a  muse  of  a 
cough,  and  is  confident  that  "  those  wicked  remains  of 
your  illness  will  soon  give  way  to  warm  weather  and 
gentle  exercise."  It  is  in  the  same  letter  that  Gray  speaks 
with  some  coldness  of  Joseph  Andrews,  and  reverts  with 
the  warmth  on  which  we  have  already  commented  to  the 
much  more  congenial  romances  of  Marivaux  and  Crebillon. 
We  may  here  confess  that  Gray  certainly  misses,  in  com- 


50  GRAY.  [chap. 

mon  with  most  men  of  his  time,  the  one  great  charm  of 
the  literary  character  at  its  best,  namely  enthusiasm  for 
excellence  in  contemporaries.  It  is  a  sign  of  a  dry  age 
when  the  principal  authors  of  a  country  look  askance  on 
one  another.  Some  silly  critics  in  our  own  days  have 
discovered  with  indignant  horror  the  existence  of  "  mutual 
admiration  societies."  A  little  more  acquaintance  with 
the  history  of  literature  might  have  shown  them  how 
strong  the  sentiment  of  comradeship  has  been  in  every 
age  of  real  intellectual  vitality.  It  is  much  to  be  deplored 
that  the  chilly  air  of  the  eighteenth  century  pre- 
vented the  "  mutual  admiration  "  of  such  men  as  Gray 
and  Fielding. 

This  is  perhaps  an  appropriate  point  at  which  to  pause 
and  consider  the  condition  of  English  poetry  at  the 
moment  at  which  we  have  now  arrived.  When  Gray 
began  seriously  to  write,  in  1742,  the  considerable  poets 
then  alive  in  England  might  have  been  counted  on  the 
fingers  of  two  hands.  Pope  and  Swift  were  nearing  the 
close  of  their  careers  of  glory  and  suffering,  the  former 
still  vocal  to  the  last,  and  now  quite  unrivalled  by  any 
predecessor  in  personal  prestige.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  he  was  not  destined  to  publish  anything  more 
of  any  consequence.  Three  other  names,  Goldsmith, 
Churchill,  and  Cowper,  were  those  of  children  not  to 
appear  in  literature  for  many  years  to  come.  Gray's 
actual  competitors,  therefore,  were  only  four  in  number. 
Of  these  the  eldest,  Young,  was  just  beginning  to  publish, 
at  the  age  of  fifty-eight,  the  only  work  by  which  he  is 
now  much  remembered,  or  which  can  still  be  read  with 
pleasure.  The  Night  Thoughts  was  destined  to  make 
his  the  most  prominent  poetical  figure  for  the  next  ten 
years.     Thomson,  on  the  other  hand,  a  younger  and  far 


in.]  STOKE-POGIS.  51 

more  vital  spirit,  had  practically  retreated  already  upon 
his  laurels,  and  was  presently  to  die,  without  again 
addressing  the  public  except  in  the  luckless  tragedy  of 
Sophonisba,  bequeathing,  however,  to  posterity  the  trea- 
sure of  his  Castle  of  Indolence.  Samuel  Johnson  had 
published  London,  a  nine  days'  wonder,  and  had  subsided 
into  temporary  oblivion.  Collins,  just  twenty-one  years 
of  age,  had  brought  out  a  pamphlet  of  Persian  Eclogues 
without  attracting  the  smallest  notice  from  anybody. 
Among  the  lesser  stars,  Allan  Eamsay  and  Ambrose 
Philips  were  retired  old  men,  now  a  long  while  silent, 
who  remembered  the  days  of  Addison ;  Armstrong  had 
flashed  into  unenviable  distinction  with  a  poem  more 
clever  than  decorous ;  Dyer,  one  of  the  lazy  men  who 
grew  fat  too  soon,  was  buried  in  his  own  Fleece ;  Shen- 
stone  and  Akenside,  much  younger  men,  were  beginning 
to  be  talked  about  in  the  circle  of  their  friends,  but  had 
as  yet  done  little.  The  stage,  therefore,  upon  which 
Gray  proceeded  very  gingerly  to  step,  was  not  a  crowded 
one,  and  before  lie  actually  ventured  to  appear  in  print, 
it  was  stripped  of  its  most  notable  adornments.  Yet  this 
apparent  advantage  was  in  reality  a  great  disadvantage  ; 
as  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  admirably  says,  "  born  in  the 
same  year  with  Milton,  Gray  would  have  been  another 
man ;  born  in  the  same  year  with  Burns,  he  would  have 
been  another  man."  As  it  was,  his  genius  pined  away 
for  want  of  movement  in  the  atmosphere ;  the  wells  of 
poetry  were  stagnant,  and  there  was  no  angel  to  strike 
the  waters. 

The  amiable  dispute  as  to  the  merits  of  Agrippina 
led  the  friends  on  to  a  wider  theme,  the  peculiar  qualities 
of  the  style  of  Shakespeare.  How  low  the  standard  of 
criticism  had  fallen  in  that  generation,  may  be  estimated 


52  GEAY.  [chap. 

when  we  consider  that  Theobald,  himself  the  editor  and 
annotator  of  Shakespeare,  in  palming  off  his  forgery  of 
The  Double  Falsehood,  which  contains  such  writing  as 
this, — 

Fond  Echo,  forego  the  light  strain, 

And  heed  fully  hear  a  lost  Maid; 
Go  tell  the  false  ear  of  the  Swain 

How  deeply  his  vows  have  betrayed, 

as  a  genuine  work  by  the  author  of  Hamlet,  had  ventured 
to  appeal  to  the  style  as  giving  the  best  evidence  of  the 
truth  of  his  pretensions.  Gray  had  a  more  delicate  sense 
of  literary  flavour  than  this,  and  his  remarks  about  the 
vigour  and  pictorial  richness  of  Elizabethan  drama,  since 
which  "  our  language  has  greatly  degenerated,"  are  highly 
interesting  even  to  a  modern  reader.  Through  April  and 
May  he  kept  up  a  brisk  correspondence,  chiefly  on  books, 
with  West  at  Popes,  and  on  the  5th  of  the  latter  month 
he  received  from  his  friend  an  Ode  to  May,  beginning 

Dear  Gray,  that  always  in  my  heart 
Possessest  still  the  better  part, 

which  is  decidedly  the  most  finished  of  West's  produc- 
tions. Some  of  the  stanzas  of  this  ode  possess  much 
suavity  and  grace  : — 

Awake,  in  all  thy  glories  drest, 
Recall  the  zephyrs  from  the  west ; 
Bestore  the  sun,  revive  the  skies, 
At  mine  and  Nature's  call,  arise ! 
Great  Nature's  self  upbraids  thy  stay 
And  misses  her  accustomed  May. 

This  is  almost  in  the  later  style  of  Gray  himself,  and 
the   poem   received   from   him  commendation    as    being 


in.]  WEST'S  DEATH.  53 

"  light  and  genteel,"  a  phrase  that  sounds  curiously  old- 
fashioned  nowadays.  Gray  meanwhile  is  busy  translating 
Propertius,  and  shows  no  sign  of  application  to  legal 
studies.  On  the  contrary,  he  has  spent  the  month  of 
April  in  studying  the  Pelopomiesian  War,  the  greater 
part  of  Pliny  and  Martial,  Anacreon,  Petrarch  and 
Aulus  Gellius,  a  range  of  reading  which  must  have 
entirely  excluded  Coke  upon  Lyttelton.  West's  last 
letter  is  dated  May  11,  1742,  and  is  very  cheerfully 
written,  but  closes  with  words  that  afterwards  took  a 
solemn  meaning,  "  Vale,  et  vive  paulisper  cum  vivis." 
On  the  27th  of  the  same  month  Gray  wrote  a  very  long 
letter  to  West,  in  which  he  shows  no  consciousness  what- 
ever of  his  friend's  desperate  condition  ;  this  epistle  con- 
tains an  interesting  reference  to  his  own  health  : — 

Mine,  you  are  to  know,  is  a  white  Melancholy,  or  rather 
Leucocholy,  for  the  most  part ;  which,  though  it  seldom  laughs 
or  dances,  nor  ever  amounts  to  what  one  calls  Joy  or  Pleasure, 
yet  is  a  good  easy  sort  of  a  state,  and  ga  ne  laisse  que  de  s'amuscr. 
The  only  fault  is  its  vapidity,  which  is  apt  now  and  then  to  give 
a  sort  of  Ennui,  which  makes  one  form  certain  little  wishes  that 
signify  nothing.  But  there  is  another  sort,  black  indeed,  which 
I  have  now  and  then  felt,  that  has  somewhat  in  it  like  Tertul- 
lian's  rule  of  faith,  Credo  quia  impossibile  est;  for  it  believes, 
nay,  is  sure  of  everything  that  is  unlikely,  so  it  be  but  fright- 
ful ;  and  on  the  other  hand  excludes  and  shuts  its  eyes  to  the 
most  possible  hopes,  and  everything  that  is  pleasurable ;  from 
this  the  Lord  deliver  us  !  for  none  but  He  and  sunshiny  weather 
can  do  it. 

Grimly  enough,  while  he  was  thus  analysing  his  feel- 
ings, his  friend  lay  at  the  point  of  death.  Five  days 
after  this  letter  was  written  West  breathed  his  last,  on 
the  1st  of  June,  1742,  in  the  twenty-sixth  year  of  his 
age,  and  was  buried  in  the  chancel  of  Hatfield  Church. 


54  GRAY.  [chap. 

Probably  on  the  same  day  that  West  died,  Gray  went 
down  into  Buckinghamshire  to  visit  his  uncle  and  aunt 
Rogers  at  Stoke-Pogis,  a  village  which  his  name  has  im- 
mortalized, and  of  which  it  may  now  be  convenient  to 
say  a  few  words.  The  manor  of  Stoke  Pogis  or  Poges  is 
first  mentioned  in  a  deed  of  1291,  and  passed  through  the 
hands  of  a  variety  of  eminent  personages  down  to  the 
great  Earl  of  Huntingdon  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
The  village,  if  such  it  can  be  called,  is  sparsely  scattered 
over  a  wide  extent  of  country.  The  church,  a  very 
picturesque  structure  of  the  fourteenth  century,  with  a 
wooden  spire,  is  believed  to  have  been  built  by  Sir  John 
Molines  about  1340.  It  stands  on  a  little  level  space 
about  four  miles  north  of  the  Thames  at  Eton.  From 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  church  no  vestige  of  hamlet  or 
village  is  visible,  and  the  aspect  of  the  place  is  slightly 
artificial,  like  a  rustic  church  in  a  park  on  the  stage. 
The  traveller  almost  expects  to  see  the  grateful  peasantry 
of  an  opera,  cheerfully  habited,  make  their  appearance, 
dancing  on  the  greensward.  As  he  faces  the  church  from 
the  south,  the  white  building,  extravagantly  Palladian, 
which  lies  across  the  meadows  on  his  left  hand,  is  Stoke 
Park,  begun  under  the  direction  of  Alexander  Nasmyth, 
the  landscape-painter,  in  1789,  and  finished  by  James 
Wyatt,  R.A.,  for  the  Hon.  Thomas  Penn,  who  bought  the 
manor  from  the  representatives  of  Gray's  friend  Lady 
Cobham.  At  the  back  of  the  visitor,  stands  a  heavy  and 
hideous  mausoleum,  bearing  a  eulogistic  inscription  to 
Gray,  and  this  also  is  due  to  the  taste  of  Wyatt  and  was 
erected  in  1799.  If  we  still  remain  on  the  south  side  of 
the  churchyard,  the  chimneys  seen  through  the  thick 
umbrageous  foliage*  on  our  right  hand,  and  behind  the 
church,  are  those  of  the  ancient  Manor  House,  celebrated 


in.]  WEST'S  DEATH.  55 

by  Gray  in  the  Long  Story,  and  built  by  the  Earl  of 
Huntingdon  in  1555.  The  road  from  Farnham  Royal 
passes  close  to  it,  but  there  is  little  to  be  seen.  Although 
in  Gray's  time  it  seems  to  have  been  in  perfect  preserva- 
tion as  an  exquisite  specimen  of  Tudor  architecture,  with 
its  high  gables,  projecting  windows  and  stacks  of  clustered 
chimney-shafts,  it  did  not  suit  the  corrupt  Georgian  taste 
of  the  Penns,  and  was  pulled  down  in  1789.  Wyatt 
refused  to  have  anything  to  say  to  it,  and  remarked  that 
"  the  style  of  the  edifice  was  deficient  in  those  excellen- 
cies which  might  have  pleaded  for  restoration."  Of  the 
historical  building  in  which  Sir  Christopher  Hatton  lived 
and  Sir  Edward  Coke  died  nothing  is  left  but  the  fan- 
tastic chimneys,  and  a  rough  shell  which  is  used  as  a 
stable.  This  latter  was  for  some  time  fitted  up  as  a 
studio  for  Sir  Edwin  Landseer,  and  he  was  working  here 
in  1852,  when  he  suddenly  became  deranged.  This  old 
ruin,  so  full  of  memories,  is  only  one  of  a  number  of 
ancient  and  curious  buildings  within  the  boundaries  of 
the  parish  of  Stoke  Pogis.  When  Gray  came  to  Stoke 
in  1742,  the  Manor  House  was  inhabited  by  the  ranger 
of  Windsor  Forest,  Viscount  Cobham,  who  died  in  1749. 
It  was  his  widow  who,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  became 
the  intimate  friend  of  Gray  and  inspired  his  remarkable 
poem  of  the  Long  Story. 

The  house  of  Mrs  Rogers,  to  which  Gray  and  his 
mother  now  proceeded,  was  situated  at  West  End,  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  parish.  It  was  reached  from  the 
church  by  a  path  across  the  meadows,  alongside  the 
hospital,  a  fine  brick  building  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  so  by  the  lane  leading  out  into  Stoke  Common.  Just 
at  the  end  of  this  lane,  on  the  left-hand  side,  looking 
southwards,  with  the  common  at  its  back,  stood  West 


56  GllAY.  [chap. 

End  House,  a  simple  farmstead  of  two  stories,  with  a 
rustic  porch  before  the  front  door,  and  this  was  Gray's 
home  for  many  years.  It  is  now  thoroughly  altered  and 
enlarged,  and  no  longer  contains  any  mark  of  its  original 
simplicity.  The  charm  of  the  house  to  the  poet  must 
have  been  that  Burnham  Beeches,  Stoke  Common,  and 
Brockhurst  Woods,  were  all  at  hand,  and  within  reach 
of  the  most  indolent  of  pedestrians. 

Gray  had  been  resident  but  very  few  days  at  Stoke-Pogis 
before  he  wrote  the  poem  with  which  his  poetical  works 
usually  open,  his  Ode  to  Spring.  Among  the  MS.  at 
Pembroke  there  occurs  a  copy  of  this  poem,  in  Gray's 
handwriting,  entitled  Noon-Tide:  an  Ode;  and  in  the 
margin  of  it  there  is  found  this  interesting  note  :  "  The 
beginning  of  June,  1742,  sent  to  Fav:  not  knowing 
he  was  then  dead."  Favonius  was  the  familiar  name  of 
West,  and  this  shows  that  Gray  received  no  intimation  of 
his  friend's  approaching  end,  and  no  summons  to  his  bed- 
side. The  loss  of  West  was  one  of  the  most  profound 
that  his  reserved  nature  ever  suffered ;  when  that  name 
was  mentioned  to  him,  nearly  thirty  years  afterwards,  he 
became  visibly  agitated,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life  he 
seemed  to  feel  in  the  death  of  West  "  the  affliction  of  a 
recent  loss."  We  are  therefore  not  surprised  to  find  the 
Ode  to  Spring,  which  belongs  to  a  previous  condition  of 
things,  lighter  in  tone,  colder  in  sentiment,  and  more 
trivial  in  conception  than  his  other  serious  productions. 
We  are  annoyed  that,  in  the  very  outset,  he  should  borrow 
from  Milton  his  "  rosy-bosomed  Hours,"  and  from  Pope 
his  "purple  year."  Again  there  is  a  perplexing  change  of 
tone  from  the  beginning  where  he  was  perhaps  inspired 
by  that  exquisite  strain  of  florid  fancy,  the  Pervigilium 
Veneris,  to  the  stoic  moralizings  of  the  later  stanzas : — 


in.]  WEST'S  DEATH.  57 

How  vain  the  ardour  of  the  crowd, 
How  low,  how  little  are  the  proud, 
How  indigent  the  great ! 

It  may  be  noted,  by  the  way,  that  for  many  years  the 
last  two  adjectives,  now  so  happily  placed,  were  awkwardly 
transposed.  The  best  stanza,  without  doubt,  is  the 
penultimate : — 

To  Contemplation's  sober  eye 

Such  is  the  race  of  Man  : 
And  they  that  creep  and  tbey  that  fly 

Shall  end  where  they  began. 
Alike  the  Busy  and  the  Gay 
But  flutter  through  life's  little  day, 

In  Fortune's  varying  colours  drest : 
Brush'd  by  the  hand  of  rough  Mischance 
Or  chill'd  by  Age,  their  airy  dance 

They  leave,  in  dust  to  rest. 

The  final  stanza,  with  its  "  glittering  female,"  and  its 
"  painted  plumage  "  is  puerile  in  its  attempted  excess  of 
simplicity,  and  errs,  though  in  more  fantastic  language, 
exactly  as  such  crude  studies  of  Wordsworth's  as  Andrew 
Jones  or  TJie  Two  Thieves  erred  half  a  century  later. 
Nothing  was  gained  by  the  poet's  describing  himself  "  a 
solitary  fly  "  without  a  hive  to  go  to.  The  mistake  was 
one  which  Gray  never  repeated,  but  it  is  curious  to  find 
two  of  the  most  sublime  poets  in  our  language,  both 
specially  eminent  for  loftiness  of  idea,  beginning  by 
eschewing  all  reasonable  dignity  of  expression. 

But  although  the  Ode  to  Spring  no  longer  forms  a 
favourite  part  of  Gray's  poetical  works,  it  possessed  con- 
siderable significance  in  1742,  and  particularly  on  account 
of  its  form.  It  was  the  first  note  of  protest  against  the 
hard  versification  which  had  reigned  in  England  for  more 


5.8  GRAY.  [chap. 

than  sixty  years.  The  Augustan  age  seems  to  have 
suffered  from  a  dulness  of  ear,  which  did  not  permit  it  to 
detect  a  rhyme  unless  it  rang  at  the  close  of  the  very  next 
pause.  Hence,  in  the  rare  cases  where  a  lyric  movement 
was  employed,  the  ordinary  octosyllabic  couplet  took  the 
place  of  those  versatile  measures  in  which  the  Elizabethan 
and  Jacobite  poets  had  delighted,  Swift,  Lady  Winchil- 
sea,  Parnell,  Philips,  and  Green,  the  five  poets  of  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  who  rebelled  against 
heroic  verse,  got  no  further  in  metrical  innovation  than 
the  shorter  and  more  ambling  couplet.  Dyer,  in  his 
greatly  overrated  piece  called  Grongar  Hill,  followed  these 
his  predecessors.  But  Gray,  from  the  very  first,  showed  a 
disposition  to  return  to  more  national  forms,  and  to  work 
out  his  stanzas  on  a  more  harmonic  principle.  He  seems 
to  have  disliked  the  facility  of  the  couplet,  and  the  vague 
length  to  which  it  might  be  repeated.  His  view  of  a 
poem  was  that  it  should  have  a  vertebrate  form,  which 
should  respond,  if  not  absolutely  to  its  subject,  at  least  to 
its  mood.  In  short  he  was  a  genuine  lyrist,  and  our 
literature  had  possessed  none  since  Milton  and  the  last 
cavalier  song- writers.  Yet  his  stanzas  are  built  up  from 
very  simple  materials.  Here,  in  the  Ode  to  Spring,  we 
begin  with  a  quatrain  of  the  common  ballad-measures ; 
an  octosyllabic  couplet  is  added,  and  this  would  close  it 
with  a  rustic  eifect,  were  the  music  not  prolonged  by  the 
addition  of  three  lines  more,  while  the  stanza  closes 
gravely  with  a  short  line  of  six  syllables. 

The  news  of  the  death  of  West  deepened  Gray's  vein 
of  poetry,  but  did  not  stop  its  flow.  He  poured  forth  his 
grief  and  affection  in  some  impassioned  hexameters,  full 
of  earnest  feeling,  which  he  afterwards  tried,  ineptly 
enough,  to  tack  on  to  the  icy  periods  of  his  De  Principiia 


in.]  WEST'S  DEATH.  .  59 

Cogitandi.  In  no  other  of  Ins  writings  does  Gray  employ 
quite  the  same  personal  and  emotional  accents,  in  none 
does  he  speak  ont  so  plainly  from  the  heart,  and  with  so 
little  attention  to  his  singing  robes : — 

Vidi  egomet  duro  graviter  concussa  dolore 
Pectora,  in  alterius  non  unquam  lenta  dolorem ; 
Et  languere  oculos  vidi,  et  pallescere  amantem 
Vultum,  quo  nunquam  Pietas  nisi  rara,  Fides*que, 
Altus  amor  Veri,  et  purnm  spirabat  Honestum. 
Visa  tamen  tardi  deraum  inclementia  morbi 
Cessere  est,  reducemque  iterura  roseo  ore  Salutem 
Speravi,  atque  una  tecum,  dilecte  Favoni ! 
Credulus  heu  longos,  ut  quondam,  fallere  Soles. 

This  fragment,  the  most  attractive  of  his  Latin  poems, 
trips  on  a  tag  from  Propertius,  and  suddenly  ceases,  nor  is 
there  extant  any  later  effusion  of  Gray's  in  the  same  lan- 
guage. He  celebrated  the  death  of  Favonius  in  another 
piece,  which  is  far  more  familiar  to  general  readers.  The 
MS.  of  this  sonnet,  now  at  Cambridge,  is  marked  "  at 
Stoke :  Aug.  1742  f  it  was  not  published  till  Mason 
included  it  in  his  Memoirs. 

In  vain  to  me  the  smiling  mornings  shine. 

And  reddening  Phoebus  lifts  his  golden  fire  : 
The  birds  in  vain  their  amorous  descant  join, 

Or  cheerful  fields  resume  their  green  attire : 
These  ears  alas  !  for  other  notes  repine, 

A  different  object  do  these  eyes  require; 
My  lonely  anguish  melts  no  heart  but  mine, 

And  in  my  breast  th'  imperfect  joys  expire. 
Yet  morning  smiles  the  busy  race  to  cheer, 

And  new-born  pleasure  brings  to  happier  men  j 
The  fields  to  all  their  wonted  tribute  bear ; 

To  warm  their  little  loves  the  birds  complain ; 
I  fruitless  mourn  to  him  that  cannot  hear, 

And  weep  the  more,  because  I  weep  in  vain. 

This  little  composition  has  suffered  a  sort  of  notoriety 


60  GBAY.  [chap. 

from  the  fact  that  Wordsworth,  in  1800,  selected  it  as  an 
example  of  the  errors  of  an  ornate  style,  doing  so  because, 
as  he  frankly  admitted,  "  Gray  stands  at  the  head  of  those 
who  by  their  reasonings  have  attempted  to  widen  the 
space  of  separation  betwixt  Prose  and  Metrical  composi- 
tion, and  was  more  than  any  other  man  curiously  elaborate 
in  the  structure  of  his  own  poetic  diction."  Wordsworth 
declares  that  out  of  the  fourteen  lines  of  this  poem  only 
five  are  of  any  value,  namely  the  sixth,  seventh,  eighth, 
thirteenth,  and  fourteenth,  the  language  of  which  "  differs 
in  no  respect  from  that  of  prose."  But  this  does  not 
appear  to  be  particularly  ingenuous.  If  we  allow  the  sun 
to  be  called  Phoebus,  and  if  we  pardon  the  "green  attire," 
there  is  not  a  single  expression  in  the  sonnet  which  is 
fantastic  or  pompous.  It  is  simplicity  itself  in  comparison 
with  most  of  Milton's  sonnets,  and  it  seems  as  though 
Wordsworth  might  have  found  an  instance  of  fatuous 
grandiloquence  much  fitter  to  his  hand  in  Young,  or  better 
still  in  Armstrong,  master  of  those  who  go  about  to  call  a 
hat  a  "swart  sombrero."  Gray's  graceful  sonnet  was 
plainly  the  result  of  his  late  study  of  Petrarch,  and  we 
may  remind  ourselves,  in  this  age  of  flourishing  sonneteers, 
that  it  is  almost  the  only  specimen  of  its  class  that  had 
been  written  in  English  for  a  hundred  years,  certainly  the 
only  one  that  is  still  read  with  pleasure.  One  other  fact 
may  be  noted,  that  in  this  little  poem  Gray  first  begins  to 
practise  the  quatrain  of  alternate  heroics,  which  later  on 
became,  as  we  shall  *see,  the  basis  of  all  his  harmonic 
effects,  and  which  he  learned  to  fashion  with  more  skill 
than  any  other  poet  before  or  since. 

In  the  same  month  of  August  was  written  the  Ode  on  a 
Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College,  or,  as  in  Gray's  own  MS. 
which  I  have  examined,  of  Eton  College,  Windsor,  and  the 


in.]  WEST'S  DEATH.  61 

adjacent  country.  East  and  west  from  the  church  of 
Stoke-Pogis,  towards  Stoke  Green  in  the  one  direction 
and  toAvards  Farnham  Royal  in  the  other,  there  rises  a 
gentle  acclivity,  from  which  the  ground  gradually  slopes 
southward  to  the  Thames,  and  which  lies  opposite  those 
"distant  spires"  and  "antique  towers"  which  Gray  has 
sung  in  melodious  numbers.  The  woodland  parish  of 
Stoke  is  full  of  little  rights-of-way,  meadow-paths  without 
hedges,  that  skirt  the  breast  of  the  ridge  I  speak  of,  and 
reveal  against  the  southern  sky  the  embattled  outline  of 
Windsor.  The  Eton  Ode  is  redolent  of  Stoke-Pogis,  and 
to  have  sauntered  where  Gray  himself  must  have  muttered 
his  verses  as  they  took  shape,  gives  the  reader  a  certain 
sense  of  confidence  in  the  poet's  sincerity.  Gray  had  of 
late  been  much  exercised  about  Eton ;  to  see  a  place  so 
full  of  reminiscences,  and  yet  be  too  distant  to  have 
news  of  it,  this  was  provoking  to  his  fancy.  In  his  last 
letter  to  West  he  starts  the  reflection  that  he  developed  a 
few  months  later  in  the  Ode.  It  puzzled  him  to  think 
that  Lord  Sandwich  and  Lord  Halifax,  whom  he  could 
remember  as  "  dirty  boys  playing  at  cricket,"  were  now 
statesmen,  while,  "as  for  me,  I  am  never  a  bit  the 
older,  nor  the  bigger,  nor  the  wiser  than  I  was  then,  no, 
not  for  having  been  beyond  the  sea."  Lord  Sandwich, 
of  course,  as  all  readers  of  lampoons  remember,  remained 
Gray's  pet  aversion  to  the  end  of  his  life,  the  type  to  him 
of  the  man  who,  without  manners,  or  parts,  or  character, 
could  force  his  way  into  power  by  the  sheer  insolence  of 
wealth.  The  Eton  Ode  was  inspired  by  the  regret  that 
the  illusions  of  boyhood,  the  innocence  that  comes  not  of 
virtue  but  of  inexperience,  the  sweetness  born  not  of  a 
good  heart  but  of  a  good  digestion,  the  elation  which 
childish  spirits  give  and  which  owes  nothing  to  anger  or 


62  GRAY.  [chap. 

dissipation,  that  these  simple  qualities  cannot  be  preserved 
through  life.  Gray  was,  or  thought  he  was,  "  never  a  bit 
the  older  "  than  he  was  at  Eton,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  world  would  be  better  if  Lord  Sandwich  could  have  been 
kept  for  ever  in  the  same  infantile  simplicity.  This  de- 
scription of  the  joyous  innocence  of  boyhood,  a  theme  re- 
quiring indeed  the  optimism  of  a  Pangloss,  has  never  been 
surpassed  as  an  ex  parte  statement  on  the  roseate  and 
ideal  side  of  the  question  j  that  the  view  of  ethics  is  quite 
elementary,  and  would  have  done  honour  to  the  experience 
and  science  of  one  of  Gray's  good  old  aunts,  detracts  in  no 
sense  from  the  positive  beauty  of  the  poem  as  a  strain  of 
reflection ;  and  it  has  enjoyed  a  popularity  with  successive 
generations  which  puts  it  almost  outside  the  pale  of  verbal 
criticism.  When  a  short  ode  of  one  hundred  lines  has 
enriched  our  language  with  at  least  three  phrases  which 
have  become  part  and  parcel  of  our  daily  speech,  it  may  be 
taken  for  granted  that  it  is  very  admirably  worded.  Indeed 
the  Eton  Odeis  one  of  those  poems  which  have  suffered  from 
a  continued  excess  of  popularity,  and  its  famous  felicities, 
"to  snatch  a  fearful  joy,"  "regardless  of  their  doom,the  little 
victims  play,"  "  where  ignorance  is  bliss,  'tis  folly  to  be 
wise,"  have  suffered  the  extreme  degradation  as  well  as  the 
loftiest  honour  which  attends  on  passages  of  national 
verse,  since  they  have  been  so  universally  extolled  that 
they  have  finally  become  commonplace  witticisms  to  the 
million.  It  is  well  to  take  the  stanza  in  which  such  a 
phrase  occurs,  and  read  it  anew,  with  a  determination  to 
forget  that  one  of  its  lines  has  been  almost  effaced  in 
vulgar  traffic  :  — 

While  some  on  earnest  business  bent 

Their  murmuring  labours  ply 
'Gainst  graver  hours  that  bring  constraint 

To  sweeten  liberty, 


III.]  FIRST  ENGLISH  POEMS. 

Some  bold  adventurers  disdain 
The  limits  of  their  little  reign, 

And  unknown  regions  dare  descry ; 
Still  as  they  run  they  look  behind, 
They  hear  a  voice  in  every  wind, 

And  snatch  a  fearful  joy. 


It  is  only  in  the  second  stanza  of  the  Eton  Ode  that 
Gray  permits  himself  to  refer  to  the  constant  pressure  of 
regret  for  his  lost  friend ;  the  fields  are  beloved  in  vain, 
and  in  Wordsworth's  exquisite  phrase,  he  turns  to  share 
the  rapture, — ah  !  with  whom  1  In  yet  one  other  poem 
composed  during  this  prolific  month  of  August  1742,  that 
regret  serves  simply  to  throw  a  veil  of  serious  and  pathetic 
sentiment  over  the  tone  of  the  reflection.  The  Ode  on 
Adversity,  so  named  by  Gray  himself  and  by  his  first 
editor  Mason,  but  since  styled,  I  know  not  why,  the 
Hymn  to  Adversity,  is  remarkable  as  the  first  of  Gray's 
poems  in  which  he  shows  that  stateliness  of  movement 
and  pomp  of  allegorical  illustration  which  give  an  indi- 
viduality in  his  mature  style.  No  English  poet,  except 
perhaps  Milton  and  Shelley,  has  maintained  the  same 
severe  elevation  throughout  a  long  lyrical  piece ;  perhaps 
the  fragments  of  such  lyrists  as  Simonides  gave  Gray  the 
hint  of  this  pure  and  cold  manner  of  writing.  The 
shadowy  personages  of  allegory  throng  around  us,  and  we 
are  not  certain  that  we  distinguish  them  from  one  another. 
The  indifferent  critic  may  be  supposed  to  ask,  which  is 
Prosperity  and  which  is  Folly,  and  how  am  I  to  distin- 
guish them  from  the  Summer  Friend  and  from  Thought- 
less Joy  1  Adversity  herself  is  an  abstraction  which  has 
few  terrors  and  few  allurements  for  us,  and  in  listening  to 
the  address  made  to  her  by  the  poet,  we  are  apt  to  forget 
her  in  our  appreciation  of  the  balanced  rhythm  and  rich 
persuasive  sound  : — 


64  GEAY.  [chap. 

Wisdom  in  sable  garb  arrayed, 

Immersed  in  rapt'rous  thought  profound, 

And  Melancholy,  silent  maid, 

With  leaden  eye  that  loves  the  ground, 

Still  on  thy  solemn  steps  attend ; 

Warm  Charity,  the  general  friend, 
With  Justice,  to  herself  severe, 
And  Pity,  dropping  soft  the  sadly -pleasing  tear. 

O  gently  on  thy  suppliant's  head, 

Dread  goddess,  lay  thy  chast'ning  hand  ! 

Not  in  thy  Gorgon  terrors  clad, 
Not  circled  with  the  vengeful  band 

(As  by  the  impious  thou  art  seen) 

With  thund'ring  voice,  and  threat'ning  mien, 
With  screaming  Horror's  funeral  ciy, 
Despair,  and  fell  Disease,  and  ghastly  Poverty. 

Thy  form  benign,  0  Goddess,  wear, 

Thy  milder  influence  impart, 
Thy  philosophic  train  be  there, 

To  soften,  not  to  wound,  my  heart. 
The  gen'rous  spark  extinct  revive, 
Teach  me  to  love,  and  to  forgive, 

Exact  my  own  defects  to  scan, 
What  others  are  to  feel,  and  know  myself  a  Man. 

This  last  stanza,  where  he  gets  free  from  the  allegorical 
personages,  is  undoubtedly  the  best ;  and  the  curious 
couplet  about  the  "  generous  spark  "  seems  to  me  to  be 
probably  a  reference  to  the  quarrel  with  Walpole.  If 
this  be  thought  fantastic,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
Gray's  circle  of  experience  and  emotion  was  unusually 
narrow.  To  return  to  the  treatment  of  allegory  and  the 
peculiar  style  of  this  ode,  we  are  confronted  by  the 
curious  fact  that  it  seems  impossible  to  claim  for  these 
qualities,  hitherto  unobserved  in  English  poetry,  precedency 
in  either  Gray  or  Collins.  Actual  priority,  of  course, 
belongs  to  Gray,  for  Collins  wrote  nothing  of  a  serious 


in.]  EARLY  ENGLISH  POEMS.  65 

nature  till  1745  or  1746 ;  but  his  Odes,  though  so  similar, 
or  rather  so  analogous,  to  Gray's,  that  every  critic  has 
considered  them  as  holding  a  distinct  place  together  in 
literature,  were  certainly  not  in  any  way  inspired  by  Gray. 
The  latter  published  nothing  till  1747,  whereas  in  Decem- 
ber, 1746,  Collins'  precious  little  volume  saw  the  light. 

It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  Collins,  at  school  at 
Winchester  until  1741,  at  college  at  Oxford  until  1744, 
could  have  seen  any  of  Gray's  verses,  which  had  not 
then  begun  to  circulate  in  MS.,  in  the  way  in  which 
long  afterwards  the  Elegy  and  the  Bard  passed  from 
eager  hand  to  hand.  We  shall  see  that  Gray  read  Collins 
eventually,  but  without  interest,  while  Collins  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  ever  conscious  of  Gray's  existence ; 
there  was  no  mutual  magnetic  attraction  between  the  two 
poets,  and  we  must  suppose  their  extraordinary  kinship 
to  have  been  a  mere  accident,  the  result  of  certain  forces 
acting  simultaneously  on  more  or  less  similar  intellectual 
compounds.  There  was  no  other  resemblance  between  them, 
as  men,  than  this  one  gift  of  clear,  pure,  Simonidean  song. 
Collins  was  simply  a  reed,  cut  short  and  notched  by  the 
great  god  Pan,  for  the  production  of  enchanting  flute- 
melodies  at  intervals ;  but  for  all  other  human  purposes  a 
vain  and  empty  thing  indeed.  In  Gray  the  song,  important 
as  it  was,  seemed  merely  one  phase  of  a  deep  and  consistent 
character,  of  a  brain  almost  universally  accomplished,  of 
a  man,  in  short,  and  not  of  a  mere  musical  instrument. 

One  more  work  of  great  importance  was  begun  at 
Stoke  in  the  autumn  of  1742,  the  Elegy  wrote  in  a 
Country  Church- Yard.  It  is,  unfortunately,  impossible 
to  say  what  form  it  originally  took,  or  what  lines  or 
thoughts  now  existing  in  it  are  part  of  the  original 
scheme.     We  shall  examine  this  poem  at  length  when  we 

F 


66  GRAY.  [chap. 

reach  the  period  of  Gray's  career  to  which  it  belongs  in 
its  completed  form ;  but  as  the  question  is  often  asked, 
and  vaguely  answered,  where  was  the  Elegy  written,  it 
may  at  once  be  said  that  it  was  begun  at  Stoke  in 
October  or  November  1742,  continued  at  Stoke  imme- 
diately after  the  funeral  of  Gray's  aunt,  Miss  Mary 
Antrobus,  in  November  1749,  and  finished  at  Cambridge 
in  June  1750.  And  it  may  here  be  remarked  as  a  very 
singular  fact  that  the  death  of  a  valued  friend  seems  to 
have  been  the  stimulus  of  greatest  efficacy  in  rousing 
Gray  to  the  composition  of  poetry,  and  did  in  fact  excite 
him  to  the  completion  of  most  of  his  important  poems. 
He  was  a  man  who  had  a  very  slender  hold  on  life  him- 
self, who  walked  habitually  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
of  Death,  and  whose  periods  of  greatest  vitality  were 
those  in  which  bereavement  proved  to  him,  that,  melan- 
choly as  he  was,  even  he  had  something  to  lose  and  to 
regret. 

It  is  therefore  perhaps  more  than  a  strong  impression 
that  makes  me  conjecture  the  beginning  of  the  Elegy 
wrote  in  a  Country  Church-Yard  to  date  from  the  funeral 
of  Gray's  uncle,  Jonathan  Rogers,  who  died  at  Stoke- 
Pogis  on  the  21st  of  October,  1742,  and  who  was  buried 
with  the  Antrobus  family  in  the  church  of  the  neighbour- 
ing parish  of  Burnham.  An  ingenious  Latin  inscription 
to  him,  in  a  marble  tablet  in  the  church  of  that  name, 
has  always  been  ascribed  to  Gray  himself.  Eogers  died 
at  the  age  of  sixty-five,  having  spent  thirty-two  years  in 
undisturbed  felicity  with  his  wife,  born  Anna  Antrobus, 
who  survived  him  till  near  the  end  of  her  celebrated 
nephew's  life.  The  death  of  Mr.  Rogers  completely 
altered  Gray's  prospects.  Mrs.  Rogers  appears  to  have 
been  left  with  a  very  small  fortune,  just  enough  to  sup- 


in.]  EARLY  ENGLISH  POEMS.  67 

port  her  and  her  sisters  Mrs.  Gray  and  Miss  Antrobus, 
in  genteel  comfort,  if  they  shared  a  house  together,  and 
had  no  extraneous  expenses.     The  ladies  from  Cornhill 
accordingly  came  down  to  West  End  House  at  Stoke,  and 
there  the  three  sisters  lived  until  their  respective  deaths. 
But  Gray's  dream  of  a  life  of  lettered  ease  was  at  an 
end ;  he  saw  that  what  would  support  these  ladies  would 
leave  but  little  margin  for  him.     His  temperament  and 
his  mode  of  study  shut  him  out  from  every  energetic 
profession.     He  was  twenty-five  years  of  age,  and  hitherto 
had  not  so  much  as  begun  any  serious  study  of  the  law, 
for  which  his  mother  still  imagined  him  to  be  preparing. 
Only  one  course  was  open  to  him,  namely,  to  return  to 
Cambridge,  where  living  was  very  cheap,  and  to  reside  in 
college,   spending  his  vacations  quietly  at   Stoke  Pogis. 
As  Mason  puts  it,   "he  was  too  delicate  to  hurt  two 
persons   for   whom   he  had  so  tender  an   affection,    by 
peremptorily  declaring  his  real  intentions,  and  therefore 
changed,  or  pretended  to  change,  the  line  of  his  study." 
Henceforward,  until   1759,  his  whole  life  was  a  regular 
oscillation  between  Stoke  and  Cambridge,  varied  only  by 
occasional  visits  to  London.     The  first  part  of  his  life 
was  now  over.     At  twenty-five  Gray  becomes  a  middle- 
aged  man,  and  loses,  among  the  libraries  of  the  University, 
his    last   pretensions  to   physical   elasticity.     From   this 
time  forward  we  find  that  his  ailments,  his  melancholy, 
his  reserve,  and  his  habit  of  drowning  consciousness  in 
perpetual  study,  have  taken  firm  hold  upon  him,  and  he 
begins  to  plunge  into  an  excess  of  reading,  treating  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge  as  a  narcotic.     In  the  winter 
of  1742    he   proceeded    to   Peterhouse,    and   taking   his 
bachelor's  degree  in  Civil  Law,  was  forthwith  installed  as 
a  resident  of  that  college. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


LIFE    AT    CAMBEIDGE. 


Gray  took  up  his  abode  at  Peterhouse,  in  the  room 
nearest  the  road  on  the  second  floor  on  the  north  side,  a 
room  which  still  exists  and  which  commands  a  fine  view 
of  Pembroke  College  further  east,  on  the  opposite  side  of 
Trumpington  Street.  It  would  seem,  indeed,  that  Gray's 
eyes  and  thoughts  were  for  ever  away  from  home,  and 
paying  a  visit  to  the  society  across  the  road.  His  letters 
are  full  of  minute  discussions  of  what  is  going  on  at  Pem- 
broke, but  never  a  word  of  Peterhouse  ;  indeed  so  natu- 
rally and  commonly  does  he  discuss  the  politics  of  the 
former  college,  often  without  naming  it,  that  all  his  bio- 
graphers, except  of  course  Mason,  seem  to  have  taken  for 
granted  that  he  was  describing  Peterhouse.  Oddly  enough, 
Mason,  who  might  have  explained  this  circumstance  in 
half  a  dozen  words,  does  not  appear  to  have  noticed  the 
fact,  so  natural  did  it  seem  to  him  to  read  about  events 
which  went  on  in  his  own  college  of  Pembroke.  Nor  is  it 
explained  why  Gray  never  became  a  fellow  of  Peterhouse. 
In  all  the  correspondence  of  Gray  I  have  only  noted  one 
solitary  instance  in  which  he  has  mentioned  a  Petru- 
sian ;  on  this  one  occasion  he  does  name  the  Master,  J. 
Whalley,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Chester,  in  connexion  with 
an  anecdote  which  does  more  honour  to  him  as  a  kind  old 


a*,  iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBEIDGE.  69 

soul  than  as  a  disciplinarian.  But  all  Gray's  friends,  and 
enemies,  and  interests,  were  centered  in  Pembroke,  and 
he  shows  such  an  intimate  knowledge  of  all  the  cabals 
and  ridiculous  little  intrigues  which  thrilled  the  common- 
room  of  that  college,  as  requires  an  explanation  that 
now  can  never  be  given.  These  first  years  of  his  resi- 
dence are  the  most  obscure  in  his  whole  career.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  of  his  three  most  intimate  correspon- 
dents one,  West,  was  dead,  another,  Walpole,  estranged, 
and  the  third,  Wharton,  a  resident  in  Cambridge  like  him- 
self, and  therefore  too  near  at  hand  to  be  written  to.  On 
the  27th  of  December,  1742,  a  few  days  after  his  arrival 
at  the  university,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Dr.  Wharton,  which 
has  been  preserved,  and  his  Hymn  to  Ignorance,  Mason 
tells  us,  dates  from  the  same  time.  But  after  this  he 
entirely  disappears  from  us  for  a  couple  of  years,  a  few 
legends  of  the  direction  taken  by  his  studies  and  his 
schemes  of  literary  work  being  the  only  glimpses  we  get 
of  him. 

But  although  Gray  tells  us  nothing  about  his  own 
college,  it  is  still  possible  to  form  a  tolerably  distinct  idea 
of  the  society  with  whom  he  moved  at  Pembroke.  The 
Master,  Dr.  Koger  Long,  was  a  man  of  parts,  but  full  of 
eccentricities,  and  gifted  with  a  very  disagreeable  temper. 
He  was  a  species  of  poetaster,  oddly  associated  in  verse,  at 
different  extremes  of  his  long  life,  with  Laurence  Eusden, 
the  poet  laureate,  and  the  great  Erasmus  Darwin.  When 
Gray  settled  in  the  University,  Roger  Long  was  sixty-two 
years  of  age,  had  been  Master  of  Pembroke  nine  years, 
and,  after  being  appointed  Lowndes'  Professor  of  astro- 
nomy in  1750,  was  to  survive  until  1770,  dying  in  his 
ninety-first  year.  He  was  fond  of  exercising  his  inven- 
tion on  lumbering  constructions,  which  provoked  the  ridi- 


70  GRAY.  [chap. 

cule  of  young  wits  like  Gray ;  such  as  a  sort  of  orrery 
which  he  built  in  the  north-eastern  corner  of  the  inner 
court  of  Pembroke  ;  and  a  still  more  remarkable  water- 
velocipede,  upon  which  Dr.  Long  was  wont  to  splash 
about  in  Pembroke  basin,  "  like  a  wild  goose  at  play," 
heedless  of  mocking  undergraduates.  This  eccentric  per- 
sonage was  the  object  of  much  observation  on  the  part  of 
Gray,  who  frequently  mentioned  him  in  his  letters,  and 
was  delighted  when  any  new  absurdity  gave  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  writing  to  his  correspondents  about  "  the  high 
and  mighty  Prince  Koger  surnamed  the  Long,  Lord  of  the 
great  Zodiac,  the  glass  Uranium,  and  the  Chariot  that  goes 
without  horses."  As  the  astronomer  grew  older,  he  more 
and  more  lost  his  authority  with  the  fellows,  and  Gray 
describes  scenes  of  absolute  rebellion  which  are,  I  believe, 
recorded  by  no  other  historian.  Gray  was,  undoubtedly, 
in  possession  of  information  denied  to  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Part  of  this  information  came,  we  cannot  doubt, 
from  Dr.  Wharton,  and  part  from  another  intimate  friend 
of  Gray's,  William  Trollope,  who  had  taken  his  degree  in 
1730,  and  who  was  one  of  the  senior  fellows  of  Pembroke. 
Another  excellent  friend  of  Gray's,  also  a  leading  man  at 
Pembroke,  was  the  gentle  and  refined  Dr.  James  Brown, 
who  eventually  succeeded  Long  in  the  mastership,  and  in 
whose  arms  Gray  died.  Outside  this  little  Pembroke 
circle  Gray  had  few  associates.  He  knew  Conyers  Middle- 
ton  very  well,  and  seems  to  have  gained,  a  little  later, 
while  haunting  the  rich  library  of  Emmanuel  College,  the 
acquaintance  of  a  man  whose  influence  on  him  was  dis- 
tinctly hurtful,  the  satellite  of  Warburton,  Kichard  Hurd, 
long  afterwards  Bishop  of  Worcester.  But  his  association 
with  Conyers  Middleton,  certainly  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able men  then  moving  in  the  University,  amounted  almost 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  71 

to  friendship.  They  probably  met  nearly  every  day, 
Middleton  being  University  Librarian ;  there  was  much 
that  Gray  would  find  sympathetic  in  the  broad  theology  of 
Middleton,  who  had  won  his  spurs  by  attacking  the  deists 
from  ground  almost  as  sceptical  as  their  own,  yet  strictly 
within  the  pale  of  orthodoxy ;  nor  would  the  irony  and 
free  thought  of  a  champion  of  the  Church  of  England  be 
shocking  to  Gray,  whose  own  tenets  were  at  this  time  no 
less  broad  than  his  hatred  of  an  open  profession  of  deism 
was  pronounced.  Gray's  feeling  in  religion  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  high  and  dry  objection  to  enthusiasm,  or 
change,  or  subversion.  He  was  willing  to  admit  a  certain 
breadth  of  conjecture,  so  long  as  the  forms  of  orthodoxy 
were  preserved,  but  he  objected  excessively  to  any  attempt 
to  tamper  with  those  forms,  collecting  Shaftesbury,  Vol- 
taire, Rousseau,  and  Hume  under  one  general  category  of 
abhorrence.  As  he  says  in  a  cancelled  stanza  of  one  of 
his  poems  : — 

No  more,  with  reason  and  thyself  at  strife, 
Give  anxious  cares  and  eDdless  wishes  room ; 

But  through  the  cool  sequester'd  vale  of  life 
Pursue  the  silent  tenour  of  thy  doom, 

an  attitude  which  would  not  preclude  a  good  deal  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  curious  speculations  of  Conyers  Middleton. 
There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that,  in  spite  of  a  few  com- 
panions of  this  class,  most  of  them,  like  Middleton,  much 
older  than  himself,  he  found  Cambridge  exceedingly 
dreary.  He  talks  in  one  of  his  letters  of  "  the  strong  at- 
tachment, or  rather  allegiance,  which  I  and  all  here  owe 
to  our  sovereign  lady  and  mistress,  the  president  of  presi- 
dents, and  head  of  heads  (if  I  may  be  permitted  to  pro- 
nounce   her   name,    that    ineffable  Octogrammaton),   the 


72  GRAY.  [chap. 

power  of  Laziness.  You  must  know  that  she  has  been 
pleased  to  appoint  me  (in  preference  to  so  many  old  ser- 
vants of  hers,  who  had  spent  their  whole  lives  in  quali- 
fying themselves  for  the  office)  Grand  Picker  of  Straws 
and  Push-Pin  Player  in  ordinary  to  her  Supinity."  This 
in  1744,  and  the  same  note  had  been  struck  two  years 
earlier  in  his  curiously  splenetic  Hymn  to  Ignorance  : — 

Hail,  horrors,  hail !  ye  ever  gloomy  bowers, 
Ye  Gothic  fanes,  and  antiquated  towers, 
Where  rushy  Camus'  slowly-winding  flood 
Perpetual  draws  his  humid  train  of  mud : 
Glad  I  revisit  thy  neglected  reign, 
O  take  me  to  thy  peaceful  shade  again. 

This  atmosphere  of  apathy  and  ignorance  was  by  no 
means  favourable  to  the  composition  of  poetry.  It  was, 
indeed  absolutely  fatal  to  it,  and  being  at  liberty  to  write 
odes  any  hour  of  any  day  completely  took  away  from  the 
poet  the  inclination  to  compose  them  at  all.  The  flow  of 
verse  which  had  been  so  full  and  constant  in  1742  ceased 
abruptly  and  entirely,  and  his  thoughts  turned  in  a  wholly 
fresh  direction.  He  gave  himself  up  almost  exclusively 
for  the  first  four  or  five  years  to  a  consecutive  study  of 
the  whole  existing  literature  of  ancient  Greece.  If  he 
had  seen  cause  to  lament  the  deadness  of  classical  enter- 
prise at  Cambridge  when  he  was  an  undergraduate,  this 
lethargy  had  become  still  more  universal  since  the  death 
of  Bentley  and  Snape.  Gray  insisted,  almost  in  solitude, 
on  the  necessity  of  persistence  in  the  cultivation  of  Greek 
literature,  and  he  forms  the  link  between  the  school  of 
humanity  which  flourished  in  Cambridge  in  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  that  of  which  Porson  was 
to  be  the  representative. 

One   of   Gray's   earliest  schemes   was   a    critical   text 


iv.j  LIFE  AT  CAMBEIDGB.  73 

of  Strabo,  an  author  of  whom  he  knew  no  satisfac- 
tory edition.  Among  the  Pembroke  MSS.  may  still 
be  found  his  painstaking  and  copious  notes  collected 
for  this  purpose,  and  Mason  possessed  in  Gray's  hand- 
writing "  a  great  number  of  geographical  disquisitions, 
particularly  with  respect  to  that  part  of  Asia  which  com- 
prehends Persia  and  India ;  concerning  the  ancient  and 
modern  names  and  divisions  of  which  extensive  countries 
his  notes  are  very  copious  "  This  edition  of  Strabo  never 
came  to  the  birth,  and  the  same  has  to  be  said  of  Kis  pro- 
jected Plato,  the  notes  for  every  section  of  which  were 
in  existence  when  Mason  came  to  examine  his  papers. 
Another  labour  over  which  he  toiled  in  vain  was  a  text  of 
the  Greek  Anthology,  with  translations  of  each  separate 
epigram  into  Latin  elegiac  verse,  a  task  on  which  he 
wasted  months  of  valuable  time,  and  which  he  then 
abandoned.  His  MS.,  however,  of  this  last-mentioned 
work,  came  into  his  executors'  hands,  copied  out  as  if  for 
the  press,  with  the  addition,  even,  of  a  very  full  index, 
and  it  is  a  little  surprising  that  Mason  should  not  have 
hastened  to  oblige  the  world  of  classical  students  with  a 
work  which  would  have  had  a  value  at  that  time  that 
it  could  not  be  said  to  possess  now-a-days.  Lord  Chester- 
field confidently  "  recommends  the  Greek  epigrams  to  the 
supreme  contempt "  of  his  precious  son,  and  in  so  doing 
gauged  rightly  enough  the  taste  of  the  age.  It  would 
seem  that  Gray  had  the  good  sense  to  enjoy  the  delicious 
little  poems  of  Meleager  and  his  fellow-singers,  but  had  not 
moral  energy  enough  to  insist  on  forcing  them  upon  the 
attention  of  the  world.  He  lamented,  too,  the  neglect 
into  which  Aristotle  had  fallen,  and  determined  to  restore 
him  to  the  notice  of  English  scholars.  As  in  the  previous 
cases,  however,  his  intentions  remained  unfulfilled,  and 


74  GRAY.  [chak 

we  turn  with  pleasure  from  the  consideration  of  all  this 
melancholy  waste  of  energy  and  learning.  It  is  hard  to 
conceive  of  a  sadder  irony  on  the  career  of  a  scholar  of 
Gray's  genius  and  accomplishment  than  is  given  by  the 
dismal  contents  of  the  so-called  second  volume  of  his 
Works,  published  by  Mathias  in  1814,  fragments  and 
jottings  which  bear  the  same  relation  to  literature  that 
dough  bears  to  bread. 

The  unfortunate  difference  with  Horace  Walpole  came 
to  a  close  in  the  winter  of  1744.  A  lady,  probably  Mrs. 
Conyers  Middleton,  made  peace  between  the  friends. 
Walpole  expressed  a  desire  that  Gray  would  write  to  him, 
and  as  Gray  was  passing  through  London  on  his  way  from 
Cambridge  to  Stoke  in  the  early  part  of  November,  a 
meeting  came  off.  The  poet  wrote  Walpole  a  note  as  soon 
as  he  arrived,  "  and  immediately  received  a  very  civil  an- 
swer." Horace  Walpole  was  then  living  in  the  ministerial 
neighbourhood  of  Arlington  Street,  and  thither  on  the  fol- 
lowing evening  Gray  went  to  visit  him.  Gray's  account  to 
Wharton  of  the  interview  is  entertaining :  "I  was  some- 
what abashed  at  his  confidence  ;  he  came  to  meet  me,  kissed 
me  on  both  sides  with  all  the  ease  of  one  who  receives  an 
acquaintance  just  come  out  of  the  country,  squatted  me 
into  a  fauteuil,  began  to  talk  of  the  town,  and  this  and 
that  and  t'other,  and  continued  with  little  interruption 
for  three  hours,  when  I  took  my  leave  very  indifferently 
pleased,  but  treated  with  monstrous  good  breeding.  I 
supped  with  him  next  night,  as  he  desired.  Ashton  was 
there,  whose  formalities  tickled  me  inwardly,  for  he,  I 
found,  was  to  be  angry  about  the  letter  I  had  wrote  him. 
However,    in   going    home   together   our   hackney-coach 

jumbled  us  up  into  a  sort  of  reconciliation Next 

morning  I  breakfasted  alone  with  Mr.  Walpole  ;  when  we 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  75 

had  all  the  eclaircissement  I  ever  expected,  and  I  left  him 
much  better  satisfied  than  I  had  been  hitherto."  Gray's 
pride  we  see  struggling  against  a  very  hearty  desire  in 
Walpole  to  let  bygones  be  bygones ;  the  stately  little  poet, 
however,  was  not  able  to  hold  out  against  so  many  cour- 
teous seductions,  and  he  gradually  returned  to  his  old 
intimacy  and  affection  for  Walpole.  It  is  nevertheless 
doubtful  whether  he  ever  became  so  fond  of  the  latter  as 
Walpole  was  of  him.  He  accepted  the  homage,  however, 
to  the  end  of  his  days,  and  was  more  admired  perhaps,  by 
Horace  Walpole,  and  for  a  longer  period,  than  any  other 
person. 

Perhaps  in  consequence  of  the  "  eclaircissement  "  with 
Walpole,  Gray  began  at  this  time  a  correspondence  with 
Mr.  Chute  and  Mr.  Whithead,  the  gentlemen  with  whom 
he  had  spent  some  months  in  Venice.  Chute  was  a 
Hampshire  squire,  a  dozen  years  senior  to  Gray  and 
Walpole,  but  a  great  admirer  of  them  both,  and  they  both 
wrote  to  him  some  of  their  brightest  letters.  Chute  was 
what  our  Elizabethan  forefathers  called  "  Italianate  f  he 
sympathized  with  Gray's  tastes  in  music  and  statuary, 
vowed  that  life  was  not  worth  living  north  of  the  Alps, 
and  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  time  in  Casa  Ambrosio, 
Sir  Horace  Mann's  house  in  Florence.  He  was  an  accom- 
plished person,  who  played  and  sang,  and  turned  a  neat 
copy  of  verses,  and  altogether  was  a  very  agreeable  excep- 
tion among  country  gentlemen.  He  lived  on  until  1776, 
carefully  preserving  the  letters  he  had  interchanged  with 
his  sprightly  friends. 

About  this  time  (May  30,  1744)  Pope  had  died, 
and  both  Gray  and  Walpole  refer  frequently  to  the 
circumstance  in  their  letters.  It  seems  that  Gray 
had   had   at   least    one   interview  with   the   great    poet 


76  GEAY.  [chap. 

of  the  age  before  him,  an  interview  the  date  of 
which  it  would  be  curious  to  ascertain.  Gray's  words 
are  interesting.  He  writes  to  Walpole  (Feb.  3,  1746), 
referring  probably  to  the  scandals  about  Atossa  and  the 
Patriot  King,  "  I  can  say  no  more  for  Mr.  Pope,  for  what 
you  keep  in  reserve  may  be  worse  than  all  the  rest.  It 
is  natural  to  wish  the  finest  writer, — one  of  them, — we 
ever  had,  should  be  an  honest  man.  It  is  for  the  interest 
even  of  that  virtue,  whose  friend  he  professed  himself, 
and  whose  beauties  he  sung,  that  he  should  not  be  found 
a  dirty  animal.  But,  however,  this  is  Mr.  Warburton's 
business,  not  mine,  who  may  scribble  his  pen  to  the 
stumps  and  all  in  vain,  if  these  facts  are  so.  It  is  not 
from  what  he  told  me  about  himself  that  I  thought  well 
of  him,  but  from  a  humanity  and  goodness  of  heart,  aye, 
and  greatness  of  mind,  that  runs  through  his  private  cor- 
respondence, not  less  apparent  than  are  a  thousand  little 
vanities  and  weaknesses  mixed  with  those  good  qualities, 
for  nobody  ever  took  him  for  a  philosopher."  There 
exists  a  book  in  which  Pope  has  written  his  own  name, 
and  Gray  his  underneath,,  with  a  date  in  Pope's  lifetime. 
Evidently  there  had  been  personal  intercourse  between 
them,  in  which  Walpole  may  have  had  a  part ;  for  the 
latter  said,  very  late  in  his  own  career,  "  Eemember,  I 
have  lived  with  Gray  and  seen  Pope." 

In  1744  appeared  two  poems  of  some  importance  in 
the  history  of  eighteenth  century  literature,  Akenside's 
Pleasures  of  the  Imagination  and  Armstrong's  Art  of 
Preserving  Health.  Gray  read  them  instantly,  for  the 
authors  were  friends  of  his  friend  Wharton.  The  first 
he  found  often  obscure  and  even  unintelligible,  but  yet  in 
many  respects  admirable ;  and  he  checked  himself  in 
the  act  of  criticizing  Akenside,  "  a  very  ingenious  man, 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  77 

worth  fifty  of  myself.5'  For  Armstrong  he  showed  less 
interest.  The  reading  of  these  and  other  poems,  a  fresh 
beat  of  the  pnlse  of  English  poetry  in  her  fainting  fit, 
set  him  thinking  of  his  own  neglected  epic,  the  De 
Principiis  Cogitandi,  or  "  Master  Tommy  Lucretius  "  as  he 
nicknamed  it.  This  unwieldy  production,  however,  could 
not  be  encouraged  to  flourish  :  "  'tis  but  a  puleing  chitt," 
says  its  author,  and  Mason  tells  us  that  about  this  time 
the  posthumous  publication  of  the  Anti-Lucretius  of  the 
Cardinal  Melchior  de  Polignac,  a  book  long  awaited 
and  received  at  last  with  great  disappointment,  made 
Gray  decide  to  let  Locke  and  the  Origin  of  Ideas  alone. 
It  may  be  noted  that  in  July  1745  Gray  had  serious 
thoughts,  which  came  to  nothing,  of  moving  over  from 
Peterhouse  to  Trinity  Hall. 

We  get  glimpses  of  him  now  and  then,  from  his 
letters.  He  does  not  entirely  forget  the  pleasures  of 
"strumming,"  he  tells  Chute;  "I  look  at  my  music 
now  and  then,  that  I  may  not  forget  it ;"  and  in 
September  1746  he  has  been  writing  "  a  few  autumnal 
verses,"  the  exact  nature  of  which  it  is  now  im- 
possible to  specify.  In  August  of  the  same  year  he  had 
been  in  London,  spending  his  mornings  with  Walpole 
in  Arlington  Street,  and  his  afternoons  at  the  trial  of  the 
Jacobite  Lords.  His  account  of  Kilmarnock  and  Cro- 
martie  is  vivid,  and  not  as  unsympathetic  as  it  might  be. 
Now,  as  for  many  years  to  come,  Gray  usually  went  up 
to  town  in  the  middle  of  June,  saw  what  was  to  be  seen, 
proceeded  to  Stoke,  and  returned  to  Cambridge  in  Sep- 
tember. Late  in  August  1746  Horace  Walpole  took  a 
house  within  the  precincts  of  the  Castle  of  Windsor,  and 
Gray  at  Stoke  found  this  very  convenient,  for  the  friends 
were  able  to  spend  one  day  of  each  week  together.     In 


78  GRAY.  [chap. 

May  1747  Walpole  rented,  and  afterwards  bought,  that 
estate  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Thames  which  he  has 
made  famous  under  the  name  of  Strawberry  Hill,  and  in 
future  Gray  scarcely  ever  passed  a  long  vacation  without 
spending  some  of  his  time  there.  It  was  now  that  his 
first  poem  was  published.  Walpole  persuaded  him  to 
allow  Dodsley  to  print  the  Ode  on  a  Distant  Prospect  of 
Eton  College,  and  it  accordingly  appeared  anonymously, 
in  the  summer  of  1747,  as  a  thin  folio  pamphlet.  In  the 
autumn  of  this  same  year,  while  Gray  was  Walpole's 
guest  at  Strawberry  Hill,  he  sat  for  the  most  pleasing, 
though  the  most  feminine  of  his  portraits,  that  by  John 
Giles  Eckhardt,  a  German  who  had  come  over  with 
Vanloo,  and  to  whom  Walpole  had  addressed  his  poem  of 
The  Beauties.  The  Eton  Ode  fell  perfectly  stillborn,  in 
spite  of  Walpole's  enthusiasm ;  even  less  observed  by  the 
critics  of  the  hour  than  Collins'  little  volume  of  Odes, 
which  had  appeared  six  months  earlier.  We  may  observe 
that  Gray  was  now  thirty  years  of  age,  and  not  only 
absolutely  unknown,  but  not  in  the  least  persuaded  in 
himself  that  he  ought  to  be  known. 

It  seems  to  have  been  about  this  time  that  the  remark- 
able interview  took  place  between  Gray  and  Hogarth. 
The  great  painter,  now  in  his  fiftieth  year,  had  just 
reached  the  summit  of  his  reputation  by  completing  his 
Marriage  a  la  Mode,  which  Gray  admired  like  the  rest 
of  the  world.  The  vivacious  Walpole  thought  that  he 
would  bring  these  interesting  men  together,  and  accord- 
ingly arranged  a  little  dinner,  from  which  he  anticipated 
no  small  intellectual  diversion.  Unfortunately  Hogarth 
was  more  surly  and  egotistical  than  usual,  and  Gray  was 
plunged  in  one  of  his  fits  of  melancholy  reserve,  so  that 
Walpole  had  to  rely  entirely  upon  his  own  flow  of  spirits 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBKIDGE.  79 

to  prevent  absolute  silence,  and  vowed  at  the  end  of  the 
repast  that  he  had  never  been  so  dull  in  his  life.  To 
show,  however,  how  Gray  could  sparkle  when  the  cloud 
happened  to  rise  from  off  his  spirits,  we  may  quote  entire 
the  delightful  letter  to  Walpole,  in  which  one  of  the 
brightest  of  his  lesser  poems  first  appeared  : — 

Cambridge;  March  1,  1747. 
As  one  ought  to  be  particularly  careful  to  avoid  blunders  in  a 
compliment  of  condolence,  it  would  be  a  sensible  satisfaction 
to  me,  before  I  testify  my  sorrow,  and  the  sincere  part  I  take 
in  your  misfortune,  to  know  for  certain  who  it  is  I  lament.  I 
knew  Zara  and  Selima  (Selima,  was  it  ?  or  Fatima  ?),  or  rather 
I  knew  them  both  together ;  for  I  cannot  justly  say  which  was 
which.  Then  as  to  your  "  handsome  Cat,"  the  name  you  dis- 
tinguish her  by,  I  am  no  less  at  a  loss,  as  well  knowing  one's 
handsome  cat  is  always  the  cat  one  loves  best ;  or  if  one  be  alive 
and  one  dead,  it  is  usually  the  latter  that  is  the  handsomest. 
Besides,  if  the  point  were  never  so  clear,  I  hope  you  do  not  think 
me  so  ill-bred  or  so  imprudent  as  to  forfeit  all  my  interest  in  the 
survivor ;  oh,  no !  I  would  rather  seem  to  mistake,  and  imagine 
to  be  sure  it  must  be  the  tabby  one  that  had  met  with  this  sad 
accident.  Till  this  matter  is  a  little  better  determined,  you  will 
excuse  me  if  I  do  not  begin  to  cry  : — 

"  Tempus  inane  peto,  requiem,  spatiumque  doloris." 

Which  interval  is  the  more  convenient,  as  it  gives  me  time  to 
rejoice  with  you  on  your  new  honours  [Walpole  had  just  been 
elected  F.R.S.].  This  is  only  a  beginning ;  I  reckon  next  week 
we  shall  hear  you  are  a  free-mason,  or  a  Gormagon  at  least. 
Heigh  ho !  I  feel  (as  you  to  be  sure  have  long  since)  that  I  have 
very  little  to  say,  at  least  in  prose.  Somebody  will  be  the  better 
for  it ;  I  do  not  mean  you,  but  your  Cat,  feue  Mademoiselle  Selime, 
whom  I  am  about  to  immortalize  for  one  week  or  fortnight,  as 
follows : — 


80  GRAY.  [chap. 

'Twas  on  a  lofty  vase's  side 
Where  China's  gayest  art  had  dyed 

The  azure  flowers  that  blow, 
The  pensile  Selima  reclined, 
Demurest  of  the  tabby  kind, 

Gaz'd  on  the  lake  below. 

Her  conscious  tail  her  joy  declar'd ; 
The  fair  round  face,  the  snowy  beard, 

The  velvet  of  her  paws, 
Her  coat  that  with  the  tortoise  vies, 
Her  ears  of  jet,  and  emerald  eyes, 

She  saw  ;  and  purr'd  applause. 

Still  had  she  gaz'd  ;  but  midst  the  tide 
Two  beauteous  forms  were  seen  to  glide, 

The  Genii  of  the  stream ; 
Their  scaly  armour's  Tyrian  hue, 
Through  richest  purple,  to  the  view 

Betray'd  a  golden  gleam. 

The  hapless  Nymph  with  wonder  saw  : 
A  whisker  first,  and  then  a  claw, 

With  many  an  ardent  wish, 
She  stretch'd,  in  vain,  to  reach  the  prize. 
What  female  heart  can  gold  despise  ? 

What  Cat's  averse  to  fish  ? 

Presumptuous  maid  !  With  looks  intent 
Again  she  stretched,  again  she  bent, 

Nor  knew  the  gulf  between, 
(Malignant  Fate  sat  by,  and  smil'd.) 
The  slipp'ry  verge  her  feet  beguil'd, 

She  tumbled  headlong  in. 

Eight  times  emerging  from  the  flood. 
She  mew'd  to  ev'ry  wat'ry  God  ; 

Some  speedy  aid  to  send. 
No  Dolphin  came,  no  Nereid  stirred, 
No  cruel  Tom  nor  Harry  heard, 

What  favourite  has  a  friend  ? 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBEIDGE.  81 

From  hence,  ye  beauties,  undeceiVd, 
Know  one  false  step  is  ne'er  retrieVd, 

And  be  with  caution  bold. 
Not  all  that  tempts  your  wand'ring  eyes 
And  heedless  hearts  is  lawful  prize, 

Nor  all,  that  glisters,  gold. 

There's  a  poem  for  you ;  it  is  rather  too  long  for  an  Epitaph . 

It  is  rather  too  long  for  a  quotation,  also,  but  the 
reader  may  find  some  entertainment  in  seeing  so  familiar 
a  poem  restored  to  its  original  readings.  Johnson's  com- 
ment on  this  piece  is  more  unfortunate  than  usual.  He 
calls  it  "  a  trifle,  but  not  a  happy  trifle."  Later  critics 
have  been  unanimous  in  thinking  it  one  of  the  happiest 
of  all  trifles ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  its  ease 
and  lightness  it  shows  that  Gray  had  been  reading  Gresset 
and  Piron  to  advantage,  and  that  he  remembered  the  gay 
suppers  with  Mdlle.  Quinault.  A  French  poet  of  the 
neatest  class,  however,  would  certainly  have  avoided  the 
specious  little  error  detected  by  Johnson  in  the  last  line, 
and  would  not  have  laid  himself  open  to  the  charge  of 
supposing  that  what  cats  really  like  is  not  gold-fish,  but 
gold  itself. 

We  must  return,  however,  to  the  dreary  days  in  which 
Gray  divided  his  leisure  from  Greek  literature  between 
drinking  tar-water,  on  the  recommendation  of  Berkeley's 
Siris,  and  observing  the  extraordinary  quarrelling  and 
bickering  which  went  on  in  the  combination-room  at 
Pembroke.  These  dissensions  reached  a  climax  in  the 
summer  of  1746.  The  cause  of  the  Master,  Dr.  Eoger 
Long,  was  supported  by  a  certain  Dr.  Andrews,  while 
James  Brown,  popularly  styled  Obadiah  Fusk,  led  the 
body  of  the  fellows,  with  whom  Gray  sympathized. 
"  Mr.  Brown  wants  nothing  but  a  foot  in  height  and  his 


82  GRAY.  [chap. 

own  hair  to  make  him  a  little  old  Roman,"  we  are  told  in 
August  of  that  year,  and  has  been  so  determined  that  the 
Master  talks  of  calling  in  the  Attorney-General  to  decide. 
Even  in  the  Long  Vacation  fellows  of  Pembroke  can  talk 
of  nothing  else,  and  "  tremble  while  they  speak."  Tuthill, 
for  some  occult  reason,  is  threatened  with  the  loss  of  his 
fellowship,  and  Gray  at  Stoke,  in  September  1746,  will 
hurry  to  Cambridge  at  any  moment,  so  as  not  to  be  absent 
during  the  Pembroke  audit. 

All  this  time  not  one  word  is  said  of  his  own 
college.  Nor  was  he  always  so  anxious  to  return  to 
Cambridge.  In  the  winter  of  1746  he  had  a  very 
bright  spell  of  enjoyment  in  London.  "  I  have  been 
in  town,"  he  says  to  Wharton  (Dec.  11th),  "flaunt- 
ing about  at  public  places  of  all  kinds  with  my  two 
Italianized  friends  [Chute  and  Whithead].  The  world 
itself  has  some  attractions  in  it  to  a  solitary  of  six 
years'  standing;  and  agreeable,  well-meaning  people  of 
sense  (thank  Heaven  there  are  so  few  of  them)  are  my 
peculiar  magnet ;  it  is  no  wonder,  then,  if  I  felt  some 
reluctance  at  parting  with  them  so  soon,  or  if  my  spirits, 
when  I  return  to  my  cell,  should  sink  for  a  time,  not 
indeed  to  storm  or  tempest,  but  a  good  deal  below  change- 
able." He  was  considerably  troubled  by  want  of  money 
at  this  time  ;  he  had  been  to  town  partly  to  sell  off  a  little 
stock,  to  pay  an  old  debt,  and  had  found  the  rate  of 
exchange  so  low  that  he  would  have  lost  twelve  per  cent. 
He  was  saved  from  this  necessity  by  a  timely  loan  from 
Wharton.  He  spent  his  leisure  at  Christmas  in  making 
a  great  chronological  table,  the  form  of  which  long  after- 
wards suggested  to  Henry  Clinton  his  Fasti  Helleniti. 
Gray's  work  began  with  the  30th  Olympiad,  and  was 
brought    down    to    the    113th,    covering   therefore    332 


iv]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  83 

years.  Each  page  of  it  was  divided  into  nine  columns, 
one  for  the  Olympiad,  the  second  for  the  Archons,  the 
third  for  the  public  affairs  of  Greece,  the  fourth,  fifth 
and  sixth  for  the  Philosophers,  the  seventh  for  the  Poets, 
the  eighth  for  the  Historians,  and  the  ninth  for  the 
Orators. 

The  same  letter  which  announces  this  performance 
mentions  the  Odes  of  Collins  and  Joseph  Warton.  Gray 
had  been  briskly  supplied  with  these  little  books,  which 
had  only  been  published  a  few  days  before.  The  former 
was  the  important  volume,  but  the  public  bought  the 
latter.  Gray's  comment  on  Warton  and  Collins  is  re- 
markable :  "  Each  is  the  half  of  a  considerable  man,  and 
one  the  counterpart  of  the  other.  The  first  has  but  little 
invention,  very  poetical  choice  of  expression,  and  a  good 
ear.  The  second,  a  fine  fancy,  modelled  upon  the  antique, 
a  bad  ear,  great  variety  of  words  and  images,  with  no 
choice  at  all.  They  both  deserve  to  last  some  years,  but 
will  not"  This  last  clause  is  an  example  of  the  vanity 
of  prophesying.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  what  Gray 
meant  by  accusing  Collins  of  a  "  bad  ear,"  the  one  thing 
in  which  Collins  was  undoubtedly  Gray's  superior ;  in 
other  respects  the  criticism,  though  unsympathetic,  is  not 
without  acumen,  and  for  bad  or  good,  was  the  most 
favourable  thing  said  of  Collins  for  many  years  to'  come. 
In  1748  Gray  and  Collins  were  destined  to  meet,  for 
once  during  their  lives,  between  the  covers  of  the  same 
book,  at  which  we  shall  presently  arrive. 

Gray  was  thirty  years  old  on  the  day  that  he  read 
Collins'  Odes.  He  describes  himself  as  "  lazy  and  listless 
and  old  and  vexed  and  perplexed,"  with  all  human  evils 
but  the  gout,  which  was  soon  to  follow.  The  proceed- 
ings at  Pembroke   had  reached  such  a  pass  that  Gray 


84  GRAY.  [chap. 

began  to  sympathize  with  the  poor  old  Master,  him  of  the 
water-velocipede.  The  fellows  had  now  grown  so  re- 
bellious as  to  abuse  him  roundly  to  his  face,  never  to  go 
into  combination-room  till  he  went  out,  or  if  he  entered 
while  they  were  there  to  continue  sitting  even  in  his  own 
magisterial  chair.  They  would  bicker  with  him  about 
twenty  paltry  matters,  till  he  would  lose  his  temper,  and 
tell  them  they  were  impertinent.  Gray  turned  from  all 
this  to  a  scheme  which  he  had  long  had  in  view,  the 
publication  of  his  friend  West's  poems.  Walpole  pro- 
posed that  he  should  bring  out  these  and  his  own  odes 
in  a  single  volume,  and  Gray  was  not  disinclined  to  carry 
out  this  notion.  But  when  he  came  to  put  their  "  joint- 
stock  "  together,  he  found  it  insufficient  in  bulk.  Nor, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  did  the  few  and  scattered  verses 
of  West  see  the  light  till  long  after  the  death  of  Gray. 
All  that  came  of  this  talk  of  printing,  was  the  anonymous 
publication  of  the  Eton  Ode.  Meanwhile,  as  he  says  to 
Wharton,  in  March  1747,  "my  works  are  not  so  con- 
siderable as  you  imagine.  I  have  read  Pausanias  and 
Athenseus  all  through,  and  iEschylus  again.  I  am  now 
in  Pindar  and  Lysias,  for  I  take  Verse  and  Prose  together 
like  bread  and  cheese." 

About  this  time  the  excellent  Wharton  married  and 
left  Cambridge.  A  still  worse  misfortune  happened 
to  Gray  in  the  destruction  of  his  house  in  Cornhill, 
which  was  burned  down  in  May  1748.  He  seems 
to  have  been  waked  up  a  little  by  this  disaster,  and  to 
have  spent  seven  weeks  in  town  as  the  guest  of  various 
friends,  who  were  "  all  so  sorry  for  my  loss  that  I 
could  not  choose  but  laugh  :  one  offered  me  opera  tickets, 
insisted  upon  carrying  me  to  the  grand  masquerade, 
desired  me   to  sit  for  my  picture  ;   others  asked  me  to 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  85 

their  concerts,  or  dinners  and  suppers  at  their  houses ; 
or  hoped  I  would  drink  chocolate  with  them  while  I 
stayed  in  town.  All  my  gratitude,—  or,  if  you  please,  my 
revenge, — was  to  accept  everything  they  offered  me ;  if 
it  had  been  but  a  shilling  I  should  have  taken  it :  thank 
Heaven,  I  was  in  good  spirits,  else  I  could  not  have  done 
it."  London  was  amusing  for  him  at  this  time,  with 
Horace  Walpole  flying  between  Arlington  Street  and 
Strawberry  Hill,  and  Chute  and  his  nephew  Whithead 
full  of  sprightly  gaieties  and  always  glad  to  see  him. 
Whithead,  who  was  in  the  law,  undertook  with  success 
about  this  time  some  legal  business  for  Gray,  the  exact 
nature  of  which  does  not  appear,  and  the  poet  describes 
him  as  "  a  fine  young  personage  in  a  coat  all  over  spangles, 
just  come  over  from  the  tour  of  Europe  to  take  possession 
and  be  married.  Say  I  wish  him  more  spangles,  and 
more  estates,  and  more  wives."  Poor  "Whithead  did  not 
live  long  enough  to  marry  one  wife ;  while  his  engage- 
ment loitered  on  he  fell  ill  of  a  galloping  consumption,  and 
died  in  1751,  his  death  being  accelerated  by  the  impru- 
dence of  his  brother,  a  clergyman,  who  insisted  on  taking 
him  out  hunting  when  he  ought  to  have  been  in  bed. 
Gray's  house  in  Cornhill  had  been  insured  for  500Z.,  but 
the  expenses  of  rebuilding  it  amounted  to  650?.  One  of 
his  aunts,  probably  Miss  Antrobus,  made  him  a  present 
of  100Z.  ;  another  aunt,  still  more  probably  Mrs.  Oliffe, 
lent  him  an  equal  sum  for  his  immediate  wants  on  a 
decent  rate  of  interest,  and  for  the  remainder  he  was  in- 
debted to  the  kindness  of  Wharton.  It  appears  from  all 
this  that  Gray's  income  was  strictly  bounded,  at  that  time, 
to  his  actual  expenses,  and  that  he  had  no  margin  what- 
ever. He  declined,  in  fact,  in  June  1748,  an  invitation 
from  Dr.  Wharton  to   come  and  stay  with  him  in  the 


86  GKAY.  [chap. 

north  of  England,  on  the  ground  that  "  the  good  people  here 
[at  Stoke]  would  think  me  the  most  careless  and  ruinous 
of  mortals,  if  I  should  think  of  a  journey  at  this  time." 

In  the  letter  from  which  a  quotation  has  just  been 
given,  Gray  mentions  for  the  first  time  a  man  whose 
name  was  to  be  inseparably  associated  with  his  own, 
without  whose  pious  care  for  his  memory,  indeed,  the 
task  of  writing  Gray's  life  in  any  detail  would  be  im- 
possible. In  the  year  1747  Gray's  attention  was  directed 
by  a  friend  to  a  modest  publication  of  verses  in  imitation 
of  Milton  j  the  death  of  Pope  was  sung  in  an  elegy  called 
Musceus,  to  resemble  Lycidas,  and  Milton's  odes  found 
counterparts  in  II  Bellicoso  and  II  Pacifico.  These  pieces, 
which  were  not  entirely  without  a  meritorious  ease  of 
metre,  were  the  production  of  William  Mason,  a  young 
man  of  twenty-two,  the  son  of  a  Yorkshire  clergyman, 
and  a  scholar  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge.  His  in- 
telligence first  attracted  the  notice  of  a  fellow  of  his  own 
college,  Dr.  William  Heberden,  the  distinguished  Pro- 
fessor of  Medicine,  who  was  a  friend  of  Gray,  and  who 
was  very  possibly  the  person  who  showed  Mason's  poems 
to  the  latter.  In  the  course  of  the  same  year,  1747, 
through  the  exertions  of  Heberden  and  Gray,  Mason  was 
nominated  a  fellow  of  Pembroke,  and  proposed  to  himself 
to  enter  that  remarkable  bear-garden.  But  Dr.  Eoger 
Long  refused  his  consent,  and  it  was  not  until  February 
1749,  and  after  much  litigation,  that  Mason  was  finally 
elected. 

There  was  something  about  Mason  which  Gray  liked, 
a  hearty  simplicity  and  honest  ardour  that  covered  a 
good  deal  of  push  which  Gray  thought  vulgar  and  did 
not  hesitate  to  chastise.  Mason,  on  his  side,  was  a  faith- 
ful and  affectionate  henchman,  full  of  undisguised  admira- 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  87 

tion  of  Gray  and  fear  of  his  sarcasm,  not  unlike  Boswell 
in  his  persistence,  and  in  his  patience  in  enduring  the 
reproofs  of  the  great  man.  Gray  constantly  crushed 
Mason,  but  the  latter  was  never  offended,  and  after  a 
few  tears,  returned  manfully  to  the  charge.  Gray's  de- 
scription of  him  in  the  second  year  of  their  acquaintance, 
when  Mason  was  only  twenty-three,  was  this  : — "  Mason 
has  much  fancy,  little  judgment,  and  a  good  deal  of 
modesty.  I  take  him  for  a  good  and  well-meaning  crea- 
ture ;  but  then  he  is  really  in  simplicity  a  child,  and 
loves  everybody  he  meets  with ;  he  reads  little  or  nothing, 
writes  abundance,  and  that  with  a  desire  to  make 
his  fortune  by  it."  This  literary  fluency  was  a  matter  of 
wonder  to  Gray,  whose  own  attar  of  roses  was  distilled 
slowly  and  painfully,  drop  by  drop,  and  all  through  life 
he  was  apt  to  overrate  Mason's  verses.  It  was  very  diffi- 
cult, of  course,  for  him  to  feel  unfavourably  towards  a 
friend  so  enthusiastic  and  so  anxious  to  please,  and  we 
cannot  take  Gray's  earnest  approval  of  Mason's  odes  and 
tragedies  too  critically.  Moreover,  he  was  Gray's  earliest 
and  most  slavish  disciple;  before  he  left  St.  John's  to 
come  within  the  greater  poet's  more  habitual  influence, 
he  had  begun  to  imitate  poems  which  he  can  only  have 
seen  in  manuscript. 

Henceforward,  in  spite  of  his  somewhat  coarse  and 
superficial  nature,  in  spite  of  his  want  of  depth  in 
imagination  and  soundness  in  scholarship,  in  spite 
of  a  general  want  of  the  highest  qualities  of  character, 
Mason  became  a  great  support  and  comfort  to  Gray. 
His  physical  vigour  and  versatility,  his  eagerness  in  the 
pursuit  of  literature,  his  unselfish  ardour  and  loyalty, 
were  refreshing  to  the  more  fastidious  and  retiring  man, 
who  enjoyed,  moreover,  the   chance    of    having   at   last 


88  GRAY.  [chap. 

found  a  person  with  whom  he  could  discourse  freely 
about  literature,  in  that  constant  easy  interchange  of  im- 
pressions which  is  the  luxury  of  a  purely  literary  life. 
Moreover,  we  must  do  Mason  the  justice  to  say  that  he 
supplied  to  Gray's  fancy  whatever  stimulus  such  a  mind 
as  his  was  calculated  to  offer,  receiving  his  smallest  and 
most  fragmentary  effusions  with  interest,  encouraging  him 
to  the  completion  of  his  poems,  and  receiving  each  fresh 
ode  as  if  a  new  planet  had  risen  above  the  horizon.  With 
Walpole  to  be  playful  with,  and  Mason  to  be  serious 
with,  Gray  was  no  longer  for  the  rest  of  his  life  exposed 
to  that  east  wind  of  solitary  wretchedness  which  had 
parched  him  for  the  first  three  years  of  his  life  at  Cam- 
bridge. At  the  same  time,  grateful  as  we  must  be  to 
Mason  for  his  affection  and  goodheartedness,  we  cannot 
refrain  from  wishing  that  his  poems  had  been  fastened 
to  a  millstone  and  cast  into  the  river  Cam.  They  are 
not  only  barren  and  pompous  to  the  very  last  degree, 
but  to  the  lovers  of  Gray  they  have  this  disadvantage 
that  they  constantly  resolve  that  poet's  true  sublime 
into  the  ridiculous,  and  leave  on  the  ear  an  uncom- 
fortable echo,  as  of  a  too  successful  burlesque  or  parody. 
Of  this  Gray  himself  was  not  unconscious,  though  he 
put  the  thought  behind  him,  as  one  inconsistent  with 
friendship. 

A  disreputable  personage  who  crossed  Gray's  orbit  about 
this  time,  and  was  the  object  of  his  cordial  dislike  and 
contempt,  has  left  on  the  mind  of  posterity  a  sense  of 
higher  natural  gifts  than  any  possessed  by  the  respectable 
Mason.  Christopher  Smart,  long  afterwards  author  of 
the  Song  to  David,  was  an  idle  young  man  who  had 
been  admitted  to  Pembroke  in  October  1739,  under 
the  protection  of  the  Earl  of  Darlington,  and  who  in 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  89 

1745  was  elected  a  fellow  of  his  college.  As  early  as 
1740  he  began  to  be  celebrated  for  the  wit  and  originality 
of  his  Latin  tripos  verses,  of  which  a  series  are  still  in 
existence.  One  of  these,  a  droll  celebration  of  the 
Nativity  of  Yawning,  is  not  unlike  Gray's  own  Hymn  to 
Ignorance  in  its  contempt  for  the  genius  of  Cambridge. 
But  Smart  lost  credit  by  his  pranks  and  levities  no  less 
quickly  than  he  gained  it  by  his  skill.  Gray  writes  in 
March  1747  that  Smart's  debts  are  increasing  daily,  and 
that  he  drinks  hartshorn  from  morning  till  night.  A 
month  later  he  had  scandalized  the  university  by  per- 
forming in  the  Zodiac  Koom,  a  club  which  had  been 
founded  in  1725,  a  play  of  his  own  called  a  A  Trip  to 
Cambi-idge,  or  the  Grateful  Fair,  a  piece  which  was  never 
printed  and  now  no  longer  is  in  existence.  Already,  at  this 
time,  Gray  thought  Smart  mad.  "  He  can't  hear  Ins  own 
Prologue  without  being  ready  to  die  with  laughter.  He 
acts  filvj  parts  himself,  and  is  only  sorry  he  can't  do  all 

the  rest As  for  his  vanity  and   faculty  of  lying, 

they  have  come  to  their  full  maturity.  All  this,  you  see, 
must  come  to  a  jail,  or  Bedlam."  It  did  come  to  Bedlam, 
in  1763,  but  not  until  Smart  had  exhausted  every  eccen- 
tricity and  painful  folly  possible  to  man.  But  the  minor 
catastrophe  was  much  nearer,  namely  the  jail.  In 
November  1747  he  was  arrested  at  the  suit  of  a  London 
tailor,  was  got  out  of  prison  by  means  of  a  subscription 
made  in  the  college,  and  received  a  sound  warning  to 
behave  better  in  future,  a  warning  which  Gray,  who 
watched  him  narrowly  and  noted  his  moral  symptoms 
with  cold  severity,  justly  predicted  would  be  entirely 
frustrated  by  his  drunkenness. 

The  frequent  disturbances  caused  in  the  university  by 
such  people  as  Smart  had  by  this  time  led  to  much  public 


90  GRAY.  [chap. 

scandal.  Gray  says  "  the  fellow  commoners — the  bucks 
—  are  run  mad,  they  set  women  upon  their  heads  in  the 
streets  at  noon-day,  break  open  shops,  game  in  the  coffee- 
houses on  Sundays,  and  in  short,"  he  adds  in  angry  irony, 
"  act  after  my  own  heart."  The  Tuns  Tavern  at  Cambridge 
was  the  scene  of  nightly  orgies,  in  which  professors  and 
fellows  set  an  example  of  roistering  to  the  youth  of  the 
University.  Heavy  bills  were  run  up  at  inns  and  coffee- 
houses, which  were  afterwards  repudiated  with  effrontery. 
The  breaking  of  windows  and  riots  in  public  parts  of  the 
town  were  indulged  in  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make 
Cambridge  almost  intolerable,  and  the  work  of  James 
Brown,  Gray's  intimate  friend,  who  held  the  post  of  Senior 
Proctor,  was  far  from  being  a  sinecure.  In  1748,  the 
Duke  of  Somerset,  who  had  absolutely  neglected  his  re- 
sponsibilities, was  succeeded  in  the  Chancellorship  by  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  whose  installation  promised  little 
hope  of  reform.  Gray  described  the  scene  to  Wharton  :  — 
"Every  one  while  it  lasted  was  very  gay  and  very  busy 
in  the  morning,  and  very  owlish  and  very  tipsy  at  night : 
I  make  no  exception  from  the  Chancellor  to  blue-coat," 
who  was  the  vice-chancellor's  servant.  However,  it  pre- 
sently appeared  that  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  was  not 
inclined  to  sacrifice  discipline.  The  Bishops  united  with 
him  in  concocting  a  plan  by  which  the  licence  of  the 
resident  members  of  the  university  should  be  checked, 
and  in  May  1750  the  famous  code  of  Orders  and  Regu- 
lations was  brought  before  the  Senate.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, easy  to  restore  order  to  a  community  which  had  so 
long  been  devoted  to  the  Lord  of  Misrule,  and  it  was  not 
until  more  than  twenty  persons  of  good  family  had  been 
"  expelled  or  rusticated  for  very  heinous  violations  of  our 
laws  and  discipline  "  that  anything  like  decent  behaviour 
was  restored,  the  fury  of  the  undergraduates  displaying 


iv.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  91 

itself  in  a  final  outburst  of  mutiny,  in  which  they  rushed 
along  the  streets  brandishing  lighted  links. 

This  scene  of  rebellion  and  confusion  could  not  fail  to 
excite  strong  emotion  in  the  mind  of  a  man  like  Gray,  of 
orderly  tastes  and  timid  personal  character,  to  whom  a 
painted  Indian  would  be  scarcely  a  more  formidable  object 
that  a  noisy  young  buck,  flushed  with  wine,  flinging  his 
ash-stick  against  college  windows,  and  his  torch  into  the 
faces  of  passers-by.  A  life  at  the  university  given  up  to 
dice,  and  horses,  and  the  loud  coarse  Georgian  dissipation 
I  of  that  day,  could  not  seem  to  a  thinker  to  be  one  which 
/  brought  glory  either  to  the  teacher  or  the  taught,  and  in 
the  midst  of  this  sensual  riot  Gray  sat  down  to  write  his 
\  poem  on  The  Alliance  of  Education  and  Government.  Of 
his  philosophical  fragments  this  is  by  far  the  best,  and  it 
is  seriously  to  be  regretted  that  it  does  not  extend  beyond 
one  hundred  and  ten  lines.  The  design  of  the  poem, 
which  has  been  preserved,  is  highly  interesting,  and  the 
treatment  at  least  as  poetical  as  that  of  so  purely  didactic  a 
theme  could  be.  Short  as  it  is,  it  attracted  the  warm  en- 
thusiasm of  Gibbon,  who  ejaculates  : — "  instead  of  com- 
piling tables  of  chronology  and  natural  history,  why  did 
not  Mr.  Gray  apply  the  powers  of  his  genius  to  finish  the 
philosophical  poem  of  which  he  has  left  such  an  exquisite 
specimen  1 n  The  heroic  couplet  is  used  with  great  skill ; 
as  an  example  may  be  cited  the  lines  describing  the  in- 
vasion of  Italy  by  the  Goths  : — 

As  oft  have  issued,  host  impelling  host, 
The  blue-eyed  myriads  from  the  Baltic  coast ; 
The  prostrate  South  to  the  destroyer  yields 
Her  boasted  titles  and  her  golden  fields : 
With  grim  delight  the  brood  of  winter  view 
A  brighter  day,  and  heavens  of  azure  hue, 
Scent  the  new  fragrance  of  the  breathing  rose, 
And  quaff  the  pendant  vintage  as  it  grows. 


92  GRAY.  [ch.  iv. 

while  one  line,  at  least,  lives  in  the  memory  of  every 
lover  of  poetry  : — 

When  love  could  teach  a  monarch  to  be  wise, 
And  gospel-light  first  dawn' d  from  Bullen's  eyes. 

On  the  19th  of  August,  1748,  Gray  copied  the  first  fifty- 
seven  lines  of  this  poem  in  a  letter  he  was  writing  to 
Wharton,  saying  that  his  object  would  be  to  show  that 
education  and  government  must  concur  in  order  to  pro- 
duce great  and  useful  men.  But  as  he  was  pursuing  his 
plan  in  the  leisurely  manner  habitual  to  him,  Montes- 
quieu's celebrated  work  L' Esprit  des  Lois  was  published, 
and  fell  into  his  hands.  He  found,  as  he  told  Mason, 
that  the  Baron  had  forestalled  some  of  his  best  thoughts, 
and  from  this  time  forth  his  interest  in  the  scheme  lan- 
guished and  soon  after  it  entirely  lapsed.  Some  years 
later  he  thought  of  taking  it  up  again,  and  was  about  to 
compose  a  prefatory  Ode  to  M.  de  Montesquieu  when  that 
writer  died,  on  the  10th  of  February,  1755,  and  the 
whole  thing  was  abandoned.  Gray's  remarks  on  V Esprit 
des  Lois  are  in  his  clearest  and  acutest  vein  : — "  The 
subject  is  as  extensive  as  mankind;  the  thoughts  per- 
fectly new,  generally  admirable,  as  they  are  just ;  some- 
times a  little  too  refined ;  in  short  there  are  faults,  but 
such  as  an  ordinary  man  could  never  have  committed : 
the  style  very  lively  and  concise,  consequently  sometimes 
obscure, — it  is  the  gravity  of  Tacitus,  whom  he  admires, 
tempered  with  the  gaiety  and  fire  of  a  Frenchman."  Gray 
was  probably  the  only  Englishman  living  capable  of  criti- 
cising a  new  French  book  with  this  delicate  justice. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  ELEGY SIX  POEMS — DEATHS  OP  GRAY'S  AUNT  AND 

MOTHER. 

Early  in  1748  Dodsley  published  the  first  three  volumes 
of  his  useful  miscellany,  called  A  Collection  of  Poems, 
for  the  plan  of  which  he  claimed  an  originality  that  it 
scarcely  deserved,  since,  like  the  earlier  miscellanies  of 
Gildon  and  Tonson,  it  merely  aimed  at  embracing  in  one 
work  the  best  scattered  poetry  of  the  day.  In  the  second 
volume  were  printed,  without  the  author's  name,  three  of 
Gray's  odes — those  To  Sjiring,  On  Mr.  Watyole's  Cat,  and 
the  Eton  Ode.  Almost  all  the  poets  of  this  age,  and 
several  of  the  preceding,  were  contributors  to  the  collec- 
tion. Pope,  Green,  and  Tickell  represented  the  past 
generation,  while  Collins,  Dyer,  and  Shenstone,  in  the 
first  volume ;  Lyttelton,  Gilbert  West,  I.  H.  Browne,  and 
Edwards  the  sonneteer,  in  the  second  volume ;  and  Joseph 
Warton,  Garrick,  Mason,  and  Walpole  himself  in  the 
third  volume,  showed  to  the  best  of  their  ability  what 
English  poetry  in  that  age  was  capable  of ;  while  three 
sturdy  Graces,  bare  and  bold,  adorned  the  title-page  of 
each  instalment,  and  gave  a  kind  of  visible  pledge  that 
no  excess  of  refinement  should  mar  the  singing,  even 
when  Lowth,  Bishop  of  London,  held  the  lyre. 

As  in  the  crisis  of  a  national  history  some  young  man, 


94  GRAY.  [chap. 

unknown  before,  leaps  to  the  front  by  sheer  force  of 
character,  and  takes  the  helm  of  state  before  his  elders, 
so  in  the  confusion  and  mutiny  at  the  University  the 
talents  of  Dr.  Edmund  Keene,  the  new  master  of  Peter- 
house,  came  suddenly  into  notice,  and  from  comparative 
obscurity  he  rose  at  once  into  the  fierce  light  that  beats 
upon  a  successful  reformer.  His  energy  and  promptitude 
pointed  him  out  as  a  fit  man  to  become  vice-chancellor  in 
the  troublous  year  1749,  although  he  was  only  thirty-six 
years  of  age,  and  it  was  practically  owing  to  his  quick 
eye  and  hard  hand  that  order  was  reinstated  in  the 
university.  With  his  mastership  of  the  college  Gray 
began  to  take  an  interest  for  the  first  time  in  Peterhouse, 
and  cultivated  the  acquaintance  of  Keene,  in  whom  he 
discovered  an  energy  and  practical  power  which  he  had 
never  suspected.  The  reign  of  Mum  Sharp,  as  the  under- 
graduates nicknamed  Keene,  was  as  brief  as  it  was 
brilliant.  In  1752  the  Government  rewarded  his  action 
in  the  university  with  the  see  of  Chester,  and  two  years 
later  he  resigned  his  nominal  headship  of  Peterhouse, 
dying  Bishop  of  Ely  nearly  thirty  years  afterwards. 

At  Pembroke  Hall,  meanwhile,  all  was  going  well  at  last. 
In  the  spring  of  1749  there  was  a  pacification  between 
the  Master  and  the  Fellows,  and  Pembroke,  says  Gray  to 
Wharton,  "  is  all  harmonious  and  delightful."  But  the 
rumours  of  dissension  had  thinned  the  ranks  of  the 
undergraduates ;  "  they  have  no  boys  at  all,  and  unless 
you  can  send  us  a  hamper  or  two  out  of  the  north  to  begin 
with,  they  will  be  like  a  few  rats  straggling  about  a 
deserted  dwelling-house." 

Gray  was  now  about  to  enter  the  second  main  period  of 
his  literary  activity,  and  he  opens  it  with  a  hopeless  pro- 
testation of  his  apathy  and  idleness.     He  writes  (April 


v.]  THE  ELEGY.  95 

25,  1749),  from  Cambridge,  this  amusing  piece  of  pro- 
phecy : — "  The  spirit  of  laziness,  the  spirit  of  this  place, 
begins  to  possess  even  me,  that  have  so  long  declaimed 
against  it.  Yet  has  it  not  so  prevailed,  but  that  I  feel 
that  discontent  with  myself,  that  ennui  that  ever  accom- 
panies it  in  its  beginnings.  Time  will  settle  my  con- 
science, time  will  reconcile  my  languid  companion;  we 
shall  smoke,  we  shall  tipple,  we  shall  doze  together,  we 
shall  have  our  little  jokes,  like  other  people,  and  our  long 
stories.  Brandy  will  finish  what  port  began ;  and  a 
month  after  the  time  you  will  see  in  some  corner  of  a 
London  Evening  Post,  yesterday,  died  the  Eev.  Mr.  John 
Grey,  Senior  Fellow  of  Clare  Hall,  a  facetious  companion, 
and  well  respected  by  all  that  knew  him.  His  death  is 
supposed  to  have  been  occasioned  by  a  fit  of  the  apoplexy, 
being  found  fallen  out  of  bed."  But  this  whimsical  anti- 
cipation' of  death  and  a  blundering  mortuary  inscription, 
was  startled  out  of  his  thoughts  by  the  sudden  approach 
of  death  itself  to  one  whom  he  dearly  loved.  His  aunt, 
Miss  Mary  Antrobus,  died  somewhat  suddenly,  at  the  age 
of  sixty-six,  at  Stoke,  on  the  5th  of  November,  1749. 
The  letter  which  Gray  wrote  to  his  mother  on  receiving 
news  of  this  event  is  so  characteristic  of  his  wise  and 
tender  seriousness  of  character,  and  allows  us  to  observe  so 
much  more  closely  than  usual  the  real  working  of  his 
mind,  that  no  apology  is  needed  for  quoting  it  here.  It 
was  written  from  Cambridge,  on  the  7th  of  November, 
1749  :— 

The  unhappy  news  I  have  just  received  from  you  equally 
surprises  and  afflicts  me.  I  have  lost  a  person  I  loved  very 
much,  and  have  been  used  to  from  my  infancy ;  but  am  much 
more  concerned  for  your  loss,  the  circumstances  of  which  I  for- 
bear to  dwell  upon,  as  you  must  be  too  sensible  of  them  yourself; 


96  GRAY.  [chap. 

and  will,  I  fear,  more  and  more  need  a  consolation  that  no  one 
can  give,  except  He  who  had  preserved  her  to  you  so  many 
years,  and  at  last,  when  it  was  His  pleasure,  has  taken  her  from 
us  to  Himself;  and  perhaps,  if  we  reflect  upon  what  she  felt  in 
this  life,  we  may  look  upon  this  as  an  instance  of  His  goodness 
both  to  her  and  to  those  that  loved  her.  She  might  have  lan- 
guished many  years  before  our  eyes  in  a  continual  increase  of 
pain,  and  totally  helpless ;  she  might  have  long  wished  to  end 
her  misery  without  being  able  to  attain  it ;  or  perhaps  even  lost 
all  sense  and  yet  continued  to  breathe ;  a  sad  spectacle  for  such 
as  must  have  felt  more  for  her  than  she  could  have  done  for 
herself.  However  you  may  deplore  your  own  loss,  yet  think  that 
she  is  at  last  easy  and  happy :  and  has  now  more  occasion  to 
pity  us  than  we  her.  I  hope,  and  beg,  you  will  support  yourself 
with  that  resignation  we  owe  to  Him,  who  gave  us  our  being  for 
good,  and  who  deprives  us  of  it  for  the  same  reason.  I  would 
have  come  to  you  directly,  but  you  do  not  say  whether  you 
desire  I  should  or  not;  if  you  do,  I  beg  I  may  know  it,  for 
there  is  nothing  to  hinder  me,  and  I  am  in  very  good  health. 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  anything  more  sweet- 
natured  and  unaffected  than  this  letter,  and  it  opens  to  us- 
for  a  moment  the  closed  and  sacred  book  of  Gray's  home- 
life,  those  quiet  autumn  days  of  every  year  so  peacefully 
spent  in  loving  and  being  loved  by  these  three  placid  old 
ladies  at  Stoke,  in  a  warm  atmosphere  of  musk  and  pot- 
pourri. 

The  death  of  his  aunt  seems  to  have  brought  to  his 
recollection  the  Megy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  begun 
seven  years  before  within  sight  of  the  ivy-clustered  spire 
under  whose  shadow  she  was  laid.  He  seems  to  have 
taken  it  in  hand  again,  at  Cambridge,  in  the  winter  of 
1749,  and  tradition,  which  would  fain  see  the  poet  always 
writing  in  the  very  precincts  of  a  churchyard,  has  fabled 
that  he  wrote  some  stanzas  among  the  tombs  of  Gran- 


v.]  THE  ELEGY.  97 

Chester.  He  finished  it,  however,  as  "he  began  it,  at 
Stoke  Pogis,  giving  the  last  touches  to  it  on  the  12th  of 
June,  1750.  "  Having  put  an  end  to  a  thing  whose 
beginning  you  have  seen  long  ago,"  he  writes  on  that  day 
to  Horace  Walpole,  "  I  immediately  send  it  to  you.  You 
will,  I  hope,  look  upon  it  in  the  light  of  a  thing  with  an 
end  to  it :  a  merit  that  most  of  my  writings  have  wanted, 
and  are  like  to  want."  Walpole  was  only  too  highly 
delighted  with  this  latest  effusion  of  his  friend,  in  which 
he  was  acute  enough  to  discern  the  elements  of  a  lasting 
success.  It  is  curious  to  reflect  upon  the  modest  and 
careless  mode  in  which  that  poem  was  first  circulated 
which  was  destined  to  enjoy  and  to  retain  a  higher  repu- 
tation in  literature  than  any  other  English  poem,  perhaps 
than  any  other  poem  of  the  world,  written  between 
Milton  and  Wordsworth.  The  fame  of  the  Elegy  has 
spread  to  all  countries,  and  has  exercised  an  influence  on 
all  the  poetry  of  Europe,  from  Denmark  to  Italy,  from 
France  to  Eussia.  With  the  exception  of  certain  works 
of  Byron  and  Shakespeare,  no  English  poem  has  been  so 
widely  admired  and  imitated  abroad  ;  and  after  more  than 
a  century  of  existence,  we  find  it  as  fresh  as  ever,  when 
its  copies,  even  the  most  popular  of  all,  those  of  Lamar- 
tine,  are  faded  and  tarnished.  It  possesses  the  charm  of 
incomparable  felicity,  of  a  melody  that  is  not  too  subtle 
to  charm  every  ear,  of  a  moral  persuasiveness  that  appeals 
to  every  generation,  and  of  metrical^  skill  that  in  each 
line  proclaims  the  master.  The  Elegy  may  almost  be 
looked  upon  as  the  typical  piece  of  English  verse,  our 
poem  of  poems ;  not  that  it  is  the  most  brilliant  or 
original  or  profound  lyric  in  our  language,  but  because  it 
combines  in  more  balanced  perfection  than  any  other  all 
the  qualities  that  go  to  the  production  of  a  fine  poetical 

h 


98  GRAY.  -  [chap. 

effect.  The  successive  criticisms  of  a  swarm  of  Dryas- 
dusts, each  depositing  his  drop  of  siccative,  the  boundless 
vogue  and  consequent  profanation  of  stanza  upon  stanza, 
the  changes  of  fashion,  the  familiarity  that  breeds  in- 
difference, all  these  things  have  not  succeeded  in  •  destroy- 
ing the  vitality  of  this  humane  and  stately  poem.  The 
solitary  writer  of  authority  who  since  the  death  of 
Johnson  has  ventured  to  depreciate  'Gray's  poetry,  Mr. 
Swinburne,  who,  in  his  ardour  to  do  justice  to  Collins, 
has  been  deeply  and  extravagantly  unjust  to  the  greater 
man,  even  he,  coming  to  curse,  has  been  obliged  to  bless 
this  "poem  of  such  high  perfection  and  such  universal 
appeal  to  the  tenderest  and  noblest  depths  of  human 
feeling,"  admitting,  again,  with  that  frankness  which 
makes  Mr.  Swinburne  the  most  generous  of  disputants, 
that  "  as  an  elegiac  poet,  Gray  holds  for  all  ages  to  come 
his  unassailable  and  sovereign  station." 

We  may  well  leave  to  its  fate  a  poem  with  so  splendid 
a  history,  a  poem  more  thickly  studded  with  phrases  that 
have  become  a  part  and  parcel  of  colloquial  speech  than 
any  other  piece,  even  of  Shakespeare's,  consisting  of  so  few 
consecutive  lines.  A  word  or  two  however  may  not  be  out 
of  place  in  regard  to  its  form  and  the  literary  history  of  its 
composition.  The  h^roic_jgQiatrain,  in  the  use  of  which 
here  and  elsewhere,  Gray  easily  excels  all  other  English 
writers,  was  not  new  to  our  literature.  Among  the 'Pem- 
broke MSS.  I  find  copious  notes  by  Gray  on  the  Nosce 
Teipsum  of  Sir  John  Davies,  a  beautiful  philosophical 
poem  first  printed  in  1599,  and  composed  in  this  measure. 
Davenant  had  chosen  the  same  for  his  fragmentary  epic 
of  Gondibert,  and  Dryden  for  his  metallic  and  gorgeous 
poem  of  the  Annus  Mirabilis.  All  these  essays  were  cer- 
tainly known  to  Gray,  and  he  was  possibly  not  uninfluenced 


v.]  .  THE  ELEGY.  99 

by  the  Love  Elegies  of  James  Hammond,  a  young  cousin 
of  ^Horace  Walpole's,  who  had  died  in  1742,  and  had 
affected  to  be  the  Tibullus  of  the  age.  Hammond  had 
more  taste  than  genius,  yet  after  reading,  with  much 
fatigue,  his  forgotten  elegies,  I  cannot  avoid  the  impression 
that  Gray  was  influenced  by  this  poetaster,  in  the  matter 
of  form,  more  than  by  any  other  of  his  contemporaries.  A 
familiar  quatrain  of  West : — 

Ah  me !  what  boots  us  all  our  boasted  power, 
Our  golden  treasure  and  our  purple  state  ! 

They  cannot  ward  the  inevitable  hour, 
Nor  stay  the  fearful  violence  of  fate, 

was  probably  the  wild-wood  stock  on  which  Gray  grafted 
his  wonderful  rose  of  roses,  borrowing  something  from  all 
his  predecessors,  but  justifying  every  act  of  plagiarism  by 
the  brilliance  of  his  new  combination.  Even  the  tiresome 
sing-song  of  Hammond  became  in  Gray's  hands  an  instru- 
ment of  infinite  variety  and  beauty,  as  if  a  craftsman  by 
the  mere  touch  of  his  fingers  should  turn  ochre  into  gold. 
The  measure,  itself,  from  first  to  last,  is  an  attempt  to 
render  in  English  the  solemn  altemationof  passion  and 
reserve,  the  interchange  of  imploring  and  desponding  tones, 
that  is  found  in  the  Latin  elegiac,  and  Gray  gave  his 
poem,  when  he  first  published  it,  an  outward  resemblance 
to  the  text  of  Tibullus  by  printing  it  without  any  stanzaic 
pauses.  It  is  in  this  form  and  with  the  original  spelling 
that  the  poem  appears  in  an  exquisite  little  volume,  pri- 
vately printed  a  few  years  ago  at  the  Cambridge  University 
Press,  in  which  Mr.  Munro  has  placed  his  own  Ovidian 
translation  of  the  Elegy  opposite  the  original  text;  as 
pretty  a  tribute  as  was  ever  paid  by  one  great  University 
scholar  to  the  memory  of  another. 


100  GRAY.  [chap. 

Walpole's  enthusiasm  for  the  Elegy  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard led  him  to  commit  the  grave  indiscretion  of  handing 
it  about  from  friend  to  friend,  and  even  of  distributing 
manuscript  copies  of  it,  without  Gray's  cognizance.  At 
the  Manor  House  at  Stoke  Lady  Cobham,  who  seems  to 
have  known  Horace  Wulpole,  read  the  Elegy  in  a  Country 
Churchyard  in  manuscript  before  it  had  been  many  months 
in  existence,  and  conceived  a  violent  desire  to  know  the 
author.  So  quiet  was  G-ray,  and  so  little  inclined  to  assert 
his  own  personality,  that  she  was  unaware  that  he  and 
she  had  lived  together  in  the  same  country  parish  for 
several  years,  until  a  Rev.  Mr.  Robert  Purt,  a  Cambridge 
fellow  settled  at  Stoke,  told  her  that,  "  thereabouts  there 
lurked  a  wicked  imp  they  call  a  poet."  Mr.  Purt,  how- 
ever, enjoyed  a  very  slight  acquaintance  with  Gray  (he 
was  offended  shortly  afterwards  at  the  introduction  of  his 
name  into  the  Long  Story,  and  very  properly  died  of  small- 
pox immediately),  and  could  not  venture  to  introduce  him 
to  her  ladyship.  Lady  Cobham,  however,  had  a  guest 
staying  with  her,  a  Lady  Schaub,  who  knew  a  friend  of 
Gray's,  a  Lady  Brown.  On  this  very  meagre  introduction, 
Lady  Schaub  and  Miss  Speed,  the  niece  of  Lady  Cobham, 
were  persuaded  by  her  ladyship,  who  shot  her  arrow  like 
Teucerfrom  behind  the  shield  of  Ajax,  to  call  boldly  upon 
Gray.  They  did  so  in  the  summer  of  1751,  but  when 
they  had  crossed  the  fields  to  West  End  House,  they  found 
that  the  poet  had  gone  out  for  a  walk.  They  begged  the 
ladies  to  say  nothing  of  their  visit,  but  they  left  among 
the  papers  in  Gray's  study  this  piquant  little  note  :  "Lady 
Schaub's  compliments  to  Mr.  Gray ;  she  is  sorry  not  to 
have  found  him  at  home,  to  tell  him  that  Lady  Brown  is 
very  well."  This  little  adventure  assumed  the  hues  of 
mystery  and  romance  in  so  uneventful  life  as  Gray's,  and 


v.]  THE  ELEGi7.  101 

curiosity  combined  with  good  manners  to  make  him  put 
his  shyness  in  his  pocket  and  return  Lady  Schaub's  polite 
but  eccentric  call.  That  far-reaching  spider,  the  Vis- 
countess Cobham,  had  now  fairly  caught  him  in  her  web,  and 
for  the  remaining  nine  years  of  her  life,  she  and  her  niece 
Miss  Speed  were  his  fast  friends.  Indeed  his  whole  life 
might  have  been  altered  if  Lady  Cobham  had  had  her 
way,  for  it  seems  certain  that  she  would  have  been  highly 
pleased  to  have  seen  him  the  husband  of  Harriet  Speed 
and  inheritor  of  the  fortunes  of  the  family.  At  one  time 
Gray  seems  to  have  been  really  frightened  lest  they  should 
marry  him  suddenly,  against  his  will  ;  and  perhaps  he 
almost  wished  they  would.  At  all  events  the  only  lines 
of  his  which  can  be  called  amatory  were  addressed  to  Miss 
Speed.  She  was  seven  years  his  junior,  and  when  she  was 
nearly  forty  she  married  a  very  young  French  officer,  and 
went  to  live  abroad,  to  which  events,  not  uninteresting  to 
G-ray,  we  shall  return  in  their  proper  place. 

The  romantic  incidents  of  the  caD  just  described  in- 
spired Gray  with  his  fantastic  account  of  them  given  in 
the  Long  Story.  He  dwells  on  the  ancient  seat  of  the 
Huntingdons  and  Hattons,  from  the  door  of  which  one 
morning  issued 

A  brace  of  warriors,  not  in  buff, 

But  rustling  in  their  silks  and  tissues. 

The  first  came  cap-a-pee  from  France, 

Her  conquering  destiny  fulfilling, 
Whom  meaner  beauties  eye  askance, 

And  vainly  ape  her  art  of  killing. 

The  other  amazon  kind  heaven 

Had  armed  with  spirit,  wit  and  satire; 

But  Cobham  had  the  polish  given, 

And  tipped  her  arrows  with  good-nature. 


102  GRAY,  [chap. 

With  bonnet  blue  and  capuchine, 

And  aprons  long,  they  hid  their  armour ; 

And  veiled  their  weapons,  bright  and  keen, 
In  pity  to  the  country  farmer. 

These  warriors  sallied  forth  in  the  cause  of  a  lady  of 
high  degree,  who  had  just  heard  that  the  parish  contained 
a  poet,  and  who 

Swore  by  her  coronet  and  ermine, 

She'd  issue  out  her  high  commission 
To  rid  the  manor  of  such  vermin. 

At  last  they  discover  his  lowly  haunt,  and  bounce  in 
without  so  much  as  a  tap  at  the  door. 

The  trembling  family  they  daunt, 

They  flirt,  they  sing,  they  laugh,  they  tattle, 

Rummage  his  mother,  pinch  his  aunt, 
And  upstairs  in  a  whirlwind  rattle : 

Each  hole  and  cupboard  they  explore, 
Each  creek  and  cranny  of  his  chamber, 

Run  hurry-scurry  round  the  floor, 
And  o'er  the  bed  and  tester  clamber : 

Into  the  drawers  and  china  pry, 

Papers  and  books,  a  huge  imbroglio, 

Under  a  tea-cup  he  might  lie, 

Or  creased,  like  dog's-ears,  in  a  folio. 

The  pitying  Muses,  however,  have  conveyed  him  away, 
and  the  proud  amazons  are  obliged  to  retreat ;  but  they 
have  the  malignity  to  leave  a  spell  behind  them,  which 
their  victim  finds  when  he  slinks  back  to  his  home. 

The  words  too  eager  to  unriddle 

The  poet  felt  a  strange  disorder ; 
Transparent  bird-lime  formed  the  middle, 

And  chains  invisible  the  border. 


v.]  THE  ELEGY.  103 

So  cunning  was  the  apparatus, 
The  powerful  pot-hooks  did  so  move  him, 

That  will  he,  nill  he,  to  the  great  house 
He  went  as  if  the  devil  drove  him. 

When  he  arrives  at  the  Manor  House,  of  course,  he  is 
dragged  before  the  great  lady,  and  is  only  saved  from 
destruction  by  her  sudden  fit  of  clemency  : — 

The  ghostly  prudes  with  haggard  face 

Already  had  condemned  the  sinner. 
My  lady  rose,  and  with  a  grace — 

She  smiled,  and  bid  him  come  to  dinner. 

All  this  is  excellent  fooling,  charmingly  arch  and  easy  in 
its  humorous  romance,  and  highly  interesting  as  a  picture 
of  Gray's  home-life.  Iu  the  Pembroke  MS.  of  the  Long 
Story,  he  says  that  he  wrote  it  in  August  1750.  It  was 
included  in  the  semi-private  issue  of  the  Six  Poems  in 
1753,  but  in  no  other  collection  published  during  Gray's 
life-time.  He  considered  its  allusions  too  personal  to  be 
given  to  the  public. 

In  this  one  instance  Walpole's  indiscretion  in  circu- 
lating the  Elegy  brought  Gray  satisfaction ;  in  others  it 
annoyed  him.  On  the  10th  of  February,  1751,  he 
received  a  rather  impertinently  civil  letter  from  the  pub- 
lisher of  a  periodical  called  the  Magazine  of  Magazines, 
coolly  informing  him  that  he  was  actually  printing  his 
"  ingenious  poem  called  reflections  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard," and  praying  for  his  indulgence  and  the  honour  of 
his  correspondence.  Gray  immediately  wrote  to  Horace 
Walpole  (Feb.  11th)  :  -  "  As  I  am  not  at  all  disposed  to 
be  either  so  indulgent  or  so  correspondent  as  they  desire, 
I  have  but  one  bad  way  left  to  escape  the  honour  they 
would  inflict  upon  me :  and  therefore  am  obliged  to  desire 


104  GRAY.  [chap. 

you  would  make  Dodsley  print  it  immediately  (which 
may  be  done  in  less  than  a  week's  time)  from  your  copy, 
but  without  my  name,  in  what  form  is  most  convenient 
for  him,  but  on  his  best  paper  and  character  j  he  must 
correct  the  press  himself,  and  print  it  without  any 
interval  between  the  stanzas,  because  the  sense  is  in  some 
places  continued  without  them."  All  this  was  done  with 
extraordinary  promptitude,  and  five  days  after  this  letter 
of  Grray's,  on  the  16th  of  February,  1751,  Dodsley  pub- 
lished a  large  quarto  pamphlet,  anonymous,  price  sixpence, 
entitled  An  Elegy  icrote  in  a  Country  Church-Yard.  It 
was  preceded  by  a  short  advertisement,  unsigned,  but 
written  by  Horace  Walpole.  At  this  point  may  be  in- 
serted a  note,  which  Gray  has  appended  in  the  margin 
of  the  Pembroke  MS.  of  this  poem.  It  settles  a  point  of 
bibliography  which  has  been  discussed  by  commentator 
after  commentator  : — 

Published  in  Febry,  1751,  by  Dodsley,  &  went  thro'  four 
editions,  in  two  months;  and  afterwards  a  fifth,  6th,  7th,  & 
8th,  9th,  10th,  &  11th,  printed  also  in  1753  with  Mr.  Bentley's 
Designs,  of  wch  there  is  a  2d  edition,  &  again  by  Dodsley  in 
his  Miscellany  vol.  4th  &  in  a  Scotch  Collection  call'd  the 
Union  ;  translated  into  Latin  by  Chr:  Anstey,  Esq.  and  the  Revd 
Mr*  Roberts,  &  published  in  1762,  &  again  in  the  same  year  by 
Rob:  Lloyd,  M.A. 

Gray  here  cites  fifteen  authorized  editions  of  the  English 
text  of  the  Elegy ;  its  pirated  editions  were  countless. 
The  Magazine  of  Magazines  persisted,  although  G-ray  had 
been  neither  indulgent  nor  correspondent,  and  the  poem 
appeared  in  the  issue  for  February,  published,  as  was  then 
the  habit  of  periodicals,  on  the  last  of  that  month.  The 
London  Magazine  stole  it  for  its  issue  for  March,  and  the 
Grand  Magazine  of  Magazines  copied  it  in  April.     Every- 


v.]  THE  ELEGY.  105 

body  read  it,  in  town  and  country ;  Shenstone,  far  away 
from  the  world  of  books,  had  seen  it  before  the  28th  of 
March.  It  achieved  a  complete  popular  success  from  the 
very  first,  and  the  name  of  its  author  gradually  crept  into 
notoriety.  The  attribution  of  the  Elegy  to  Gray  was 
more  general  than  has  been  supposed.  A  pamphlet, 
printed  soon  after  this  date,  speaks  of  "  the  Maker  of  the 
Churchyard  Essay  "  as  being  a  Cambridge  celebrity  whose 
claims  to  preferment  had  been  notoriously  overlooked  ; 
and  by  far  the  cleverest  of  all  the  parodies,  An  Evening 
Contemplation ,  1753,  a  poem  of  special  interest  to 
students  of  university  manners,  is  preceded  by  an 
elaborate  compliment  to  Gray.  The  success  of  his  poem, 
however,  brought  him  little  direct  satisfaction,  and  no 
money.  He  gave  the  right  of  publication  to  Dodsley,  as  he 
did  in  all  other  instances.  He  had  a  Quixotic  notion 
that  it  was  beneath  a  gentleman  to  take  money  for  his 
inventions  from  a  bookseller,  a  view  in  which  Dodsley 
warmly  coincided ;  and  it  was  stated  by  an  another  book- 
seller, who  after  Gray's  death  contended  with  Mason, 
that  Dodsley  was  known  to  have  made  nearly  a  thousand 
pounds  by  the  poetry  of  Gray.  Mason  had  no  such 
scruples  as  his  friend,  and  made  frantic  efforts  to  regain 
Gray's  copyright,  launching  vainly  into  litigation  on  the 
subject,  and  into  unseemly  controversy. 

The  autumn  of  1750  had  been  marked  in  Gray's 
uneventful  annals  by  the  death  of  Dr.  Middleton,  and  by 
the  visit  of  a  troublesome  Indian  cousin,  Mrs.  Forster, 
who  stayed  a  month  in  London,  and  wearied  Gray  by  her 
insatiable  craving  after  sight-seeing.  In  Conyers  Middle- 
ton,  who  died  on  the  28th  of  July,  1750,  at  the  age  of 
sixty-seven,  Gray  lost  one  of  his  most  familiar  and  most 
intellectual  associates,  a  person  of  extraordinary  talents,  to 


106  GRAY.  [chap. 

whom,  without  ever  becoming  attached,  he  had  become  ac- 
customed. His  remark  on  the  event  is  full  of  his  fine  reserve 
and  sobriety  of  feeling  :  "  You  have  doubtless  heard  of  the 
loss  I  have  had  in  Dr.  Middleton,  whose  house  was  the  only 
easy  place  one  could  find  to  converse  in  at  Cambridge. 
For  my  part  I  find  a  friend  so  uncommon  a  thing,  that 
I  cannot  help  regretting  even  an  old  acquaintance,  which 
is  an  indifferent  likeness  of  it,  and  though  I  don't  approve 
the  spirit  of  his  books,  methinks  'tis  pity  the  world 
should  lose  so  rare  a  thing  as  a  good  writer." 

In  the  same  letter  he  tells  Wharton  that  he  himself  is 
neither  cheerful  nor  easy  in  bodily  health,  and  yet  has  the 
mortification  to  find  his  spiritual  part  the  most  infirm 
thing  about  him.  He  is  applying  himself  heartily  to  the 
study  of  zoology,  and  has  procured  for  that  purpose  the 
works  of  M.  de  Buffon.  In  reply  to  Wharton's  urgent  en- 
treaties for  a  visit,  he  agrees  that  he  "  could  indeed  wish 
to  refresh  my  ivepyaa  a  little  at  Durham  by  a  sight  of  you, 
but  when  is  there  a  probability  of  my  being  so  happy  V 
However,  it  seems  that  he  would  have  contrived  this 
expedition,  had  it  not  been  for  the  aforesaid  cousin,  Mrs. 
Forster,  "a  person  as  strange,  and  as  much  to  seek,  as 
though  she  had  been  born  in  the  mud  of  the  Ganges." 
At  the  same  time  he  warns  Wharton  against  returning  to 
Cambridge,  saying  that  Mrs.  Wharton  will  find  life  very 
dreary  in  a  place  where  women  are  so  few,  and  those 
"  squeezy  and  formal,  little  skilled  in  amusing  them- 
selves or  other  people.  All  I  can  say  is,  she  must  try 
to  make  up  for  it  among  the  men,  who  are  not  over 
agreeable  neither." 

In  spite  of  this  warning,  the  Whartons  appear  to  have 
come  back  to  Cambridge.  At  all  events  we  find  Dr. 
Wharton  wavering  between  that  town  and   Bath  as  the 


v.]  THE  ELEGY.  107 

best  place  for  him  to  practise  in  as  a  physician,  and  there- 
upon there  follows  a  gap  of  two  years  in  Gray's  correspon- 
dence with  him.  The  affectionate  familiarity  of  the  poet 
with  both  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Wharton  when  they  re-emerge  in 
his  correspondence,  the  pet  names  he  has  for  the  children, 
and  the  avuncular  air  of  intimacy  implied,  make  it  almost 
certain  that  in  1751  and  1752  he  had  the  pleasure  of  see- 
ing these  dear  friends  settled  at  his  side,  and  enjoyed  in 
their  family  circle  the  warmth  and  brightness  of  a  home. 
At  all  events,  after  the  publication  of  the  Elegy,  Gray  is 
once  more  lost  to  us  for  two  years,  most  unaccountably, 
since,  if  the  Whartons  were  close  beside  him,  and  Mason 
across  the  street  at  Pembroke,  Walpole  all  this  time  was 
exercising  his  vivacious  and  importunate  pen  at  Straw- 
berry Hill,  and  trying  to  associate  Gray  in  all  his  schemes 
and  fancies. 

One  of  Walpole's  sudden  whims  was  a  friendship  for 
that  eccentric  and  dissipated  person,  Eichard  Bentley,  only 
son  of  the  famous  Master  of  Trinity,  whose  acquaintance 
Walpole  made  in  1750.  This  man  was  an  amateur  artist 
of  more  than  usual  talent,  an  elegant  scholar  in  his  way, 
and  with  certain  frivolous  gifts  of  manner  that  were  alter- 
nately pleasing  and  displeasing  to  Walpole.  The  artistic 
merit  of  Bentley  was  exaggerated  in  his  own  time  and  has 
been  underrated  since,  nor  does  there  now  exist  any  im- 
portant relic  of  it  except  his  designs  for  Gray's  poems.  In 
the  summer  of  1752  Horace  Walpole  seems  to  have 
suggested  to  Dodsley  the  propriety  of  publishing  an  edition 
de  luxe  of  Gray,  with  Bentley's  illustrations ;  but  as  early 
as  June  1751  these  illustrations  were  being  made.  As 
Gray  gave  the  poems  for  nothing,  and  as  Walpole  paid 
Bentley  to  draw  and  Miiller  to  engrave  the  illustrations, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  Dodsley  was  eager  to  close  with 


108  GRAY.  [chap. 

the  offer.  Bentley  threw  himself  warmly  into  the  project ; 
it  is  quite  certain  that  he  consulted  Gray  step  by  step,  for 
the  designs  show  an  extraordinary  attention  to  the  details 
and  even  to  the  hints  of  the  text.  Most  probably  the 
three  gentlemen  amused  themselves  during  the  long  vaca- 
tion of  1752  by  concocting  the  whole  thing  together. 
Gray  who,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  a  connoisseur  in 
painting,  was  so  much  impressed  by  Bentley's  talent  and 
versatility,  that  he  addressed  to  him  a  copy  of  beautiful 
verses,  which  unfortunately  existed  only  in  a  single 
manuscript,  and  had  been  torn  before  Mason  found  them. 
In  these  he  says  :  — 

The  tardy  rhymes  that  used  to  linger  on, 
To  censure  cold,  and  negligent  of  fame, 

In  swifter  measures  animated  run, 

And  catch  a  lustre  from  his  genuine  flame. 

Ah !  could  they  catch  his  strength,  his  easy  grace, 

His  quick  creation,  his  unerring  line, 
The  energy  of  Pope  they  might  efface, 

And  Dryden's  harmony  submit  to  mine. 

But  not  to  one  in  this  benighted  age 

Is  that  diviner  inspiration  given, 
That  burns  in  Shakespeare's  or  in  Milton's  page, 

The  pomp  and  prodigality  of  heaven. 

As  when  conspiring  in  the  diamond's  blaze, 
The  meaner  gems  that  singly  charm  the  sight, 

Together  dart  their  intermingled  rays, 
And  dazzle  with  a  luxury  of  light. 

This  is  the  Landorian  manner  of  praising,  and  almost 
the  only  instance  of  a  high  note  of  enthusiasm  in  the 
entire  writings  of  Gray.  Bentley  was  not  ludicrously 
unworthy  of  such  eulogy ;  his  designs  are  extremely 
remarkable  in  their  way.     In  an  age  entirely  given  up  to 


v.]  SIX  POEMS.  109 

composed  and  conventional  forms,  he  seems  to  have  drawn 
from  nature  and  to  have  studied  the  figure  from  life. 

Early  in  March,  1753,  the  Poemata-Grayo-Bentleiana,  as 
Walpole  called  them,  appeared,  a  small  thin  folio,  on  very 
thick  paper,  printed  only  on  one  side,  and  entitled,  Designs 
by  Mr.  R.  Bentley  for  Six  Poems  by  Mr.  T.  Gray.  This 
is  the  editio  princeps  of  Gray's  collected  poems,  and  con- 
sists of  the  Ode  to  Spring  (here  simply  called  Ode),  and 
of  the  Ode  on  the  death  of  a  Favourite  Cat,  of  both  of 
which  it  was  the  second  edition  ;  a  third  edition  of  the 
Eton  Ode;  a  first  appearance  of  A  Long  Story  and  Hymn 
to  Adversity  ;  and  a  twelfth  edition  of  the  Elegy  loritten  in 
a  Country  Churchyard.  Bentley's  illustrations  consist  of 
a  frontispiece,  and  a  full -page  design  for  each  poem,  with 
headpieces,  tailpieces,  and  initial  letters.  The  frontispiece 
is  a  border  of  extremely  ingenious  rococo  ornament  sur- 
rounding a  forest-glade,  in  which  Gray,  a  graceful  little 
figure,  sits  in  a  pensive  attitude.  This  has  a  high  value 
for  us,  since  to  any  one  accustomed  to  the  practice  of  art, 
it  is  obvious  that  this  is  a  sketch  from  life,  not  a  composed 
study,  and  we  have  here  in  all  probability  a  portrait  of 
the  poet  in  his  easiest  attitude.  The  figure  is  that  of  a 
young  man,  of  small  stature,  but  elegantly  made,  with  a 
melancholy  and  downcast  countenance. 

The  portraiture  becomes  still  more  certain  when  we  turn 
to  the  indiscreet,  but  extremely  interesting  design  for  A  Long 
Story,  where  we  not  only  have  a  likeness  of  Gray  in  1753 
which  singularly  resembles  the  more  elaborate  portrait  of 
him  painted  by  Eckhardt  in  1747,  but  we  have  also  Lady 
Schaub,  Mr.  Purt,  and,  what  is  most  interesting  of  all,  the 
pretty  delicate  features  of  Miss  Speed.  The  Rev.  Mr. 
Purt  is  represented  as  blowing  the  trumpet  of  Fame,  while 
the  amazon  ladies  fly  through  the  air,  seeking  for  their 


110  GRAY.  [chap. 

victim  the  poet,  who  is  being  concealed  by  the  Muses 
otherwhere  than  in  a  gorge  of  Parnassus.  The  designs 
are  engraved  on  copper  by  two  well-known  men  of  that 
day.  The  best  are  by  John  Sebastian  Miiller,  some  of 
whose  initial  letters  are  simply  exquisite  in  execution; 
the  rest  are  the  work  of  a  man  of  greater  reputation  in 
that  day,  Charles  Grignion,  whose  work  in  this  instance 
lacks  the  refinement  of  Muller's,  which  is  indeed  of  a  very 
high  order.  Grignion  was  the  last  survivor  among  persons 
associated  with  the  early  and  middle  life  of  Gray;  he 
lived  to  be  nearly  a  hundred  years  old,  and  died  as  late 
as  1810.  It  might  be  supposed  that  the  merits  of  the 
designs  to  the  Six  Poems  lay  in  the  interpretation  given 
by  engravers  of  so  much  talent  to  poor  drawings,  but  we 
happen  to  possess  Gray's  implicit  statement  that  this  was 
not  the  case.  If,  therefore,  we  are  to  consider  Bentley 
responsible,  for  instance,  for  such  realistic  forms  as  the 
nude  figures  in  the  head-piece  to  the  Hymn  to  Adversity, 
or  for  such  feeling  for  foliage  as  is  shown  in  the  head  and 
tail  pieces  to  the  first  ode,  we  must  claim  for  him  a  higher 
place  in  English  art  than  has  hitherto  been  conceded  to 
him.  At  all  events  the  Six  Poems  of  1753  is  one  of  the 
few  really  beautiful  books  produced  from  an  English  press 
during  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  in  spite 
of  its  rococo  style,  it  is  still  a  desirable  possession. 

It  is  pleasant  to  think  of  Gray  reclining  in  the  blue  par- 
lour over  the  supper-room  at  Strawberry  Hill,  turning  over 
prints  with  Horace  Walpole,  and  glancing  down  the 
garden  to  the  Thames  that  flashed  in  silver  behind  the 
syringas  and  honeysuckles ;  or  seated,  with  a  little  touch 
of  sententious  gravity,  in  the  Library,  chiding  Chute  and 
their  host  for  their  frivolous  taste  in  heraldry,  or  incited 
by  the  dark  panels  and  the  old  brass  grate  to  chat  of 


v.]  DEATH  OF  GRAY'S  MOTHER.  Ill 

architecture  and  decoration,  and  the  new-found  mysteries 
of  Gothic.  It  is  perhaps  pleasanter  still  to  think  of  him 
dreaming  in  the  garden  of  Stoke  Pogis,  or  chatting  over 
a  dish  of  tea  with  his  old  aunts,  as  he  called  his  mother 
and  his  aunt  collectively,  or  strolling,  with  a  book  in  his 
hand,  along  the  southward  ridge  of  meadows  to  pay  Lady 
Cobham  a  stately  call,  or  flirt  a  little  with  Miss  Harriet 
Speed. 

But  this  quietude  was  not  to  last  much  longer.  Wal- 
pole,  indeed,  was  surprised  to  have  a  visit  from  him  in 
January,  1753,  just  when  Bentley's  prints  were  going  to 
press,  for  Gray  had  been  suddenly  called  up  from  Cam- 
bridge to  Stoke  by  the  news  of  his  mother's  illness.  He 
had  not  expected  to  find  her  alive,  but  when  he  arrived 
she  was  much  better,  and  remained  so  for  more  than  a 
month.  He  did  not  choose,  however,  to  leave  her,  and 
was  at  Stoke  when  the  proof  of  Bentley's  cuhde-lampe  for 
the  Elegy  arrived ;  this  represents  a  village-funeral,  and 
being  examined  by  the  old  ladies,  was  conceived  by  them 
to  be  a  burying-ticket.  They  asked  him  whether  anybody 
had  left  him  a  ring ;  and  hereupon  follows  a  remark  which 
shows  that  Gray  had  never  mentioned  to  his  mother  or 
either  of  his  aunts  that  he  wrote  verses ;  nor  would  now 
do  so,  lest  they  should  "  burn  me  for  a  poet."  A  week  or 
two  later,  Walpole  and  Gray  very  nearly  had  another 
quarrel.  Walpole,  in  his  officiousness,  had  had  Eckhardt's 
portrait  of  Gray,  which  hung  in  the  library  at  Strawberry 
Hall,  engraved  for  the  Six  Poems,  a  step  which,  taken  as 
it  was  without  the  poet's  cognizance,  drew  down  on  Wal- 
pole an  excessively  sharp  letter — "  Gray  does  not  hate  to 
find  fault  with  me  " — and  a  final  veto  on  any  such  parade 
of  personality. 
I    Mrs.   Gray  soon  ceased  to  rally,  and  after  a  painful 


112  GRAY.  [citap. 

struggle  for  life,  expired  on  the  11th  of  March,  1753,  at 
the  age  of  sixty-seven.  Her  son  saw  her  buried,  in  the 
family  tomb,  on  the  south  side  of  the  church-yard,  near  the 
church,  where  may  still  be  read  the  exquisitely  simple  and 
affecting  epitaph  which  he  inscribed  on  her  tombstone  : — 

In  the  same  pious  confidence,  beside  her  friend  and  sister, 
here  sleep  the  remains  of  Dorothy  Gray,  widow,  the  careful 
tender  mother  of  many  children,  one  of  whom  alone  had  the 
misfortune  to  survive  her. 

When,  a  few  months  later,  Mason  had  been  standing  by  the 
death-bed  of  his  father,  and  spoke  to  his  friend  of  the  awe 
that  he  experienced,  Gray's  thoughts  went  back  to  his  mother, 
and  he  wrote :  — "  I  have  seen  the  scene  you  describe, 
and  know  how  dreadful  it  is  :  I  know  too  I  am  the  better 
for  it.  We  are  all  idle  and  thoughtless  things,  and  have 
no  sense,  no  use  in  the  world  any  longer  than  that  sad  im- 
pression lasts  j  the  deeper  it  is  engraved  the  better." 
These  are  the  words  which  came  into  Byron's  memory 
when  he  received  the  news  of  his  mother's  death. 

The  Whartons  had  by  this  time  returned  to  Durham,  and 
thither  at  last,  in  the  autumn  of  1753,  Gray  resolved  to 
visit  them.  He  had  been  unable  to  remain  at  Stoke  now 
that  it  was  haunted  by  the  faces  of  the  dead  that  he  had 
loved,  and  he  went  into  those  lodgings  over  the  hosier's 
shop  in  the  eastern  part  of  Jermyn  Street,  which  were  his 
favourite  haunt  in  London.  He  left  town  for  Cambridge 
in  May,  and  in  June  wrote  to  Wharton  to  say  that  he  was 
at  last  going  to  set  out  with  Stonehewer  in  a  post-chaise 
for  the  north.  In  the  middle  of  July  they  started,  pro- 
ceeding leisurely  by  Belvoir,  Burleigh,  and  York,  taking  a 
week  to  reach  Studley.  The  journey  was  very  agreeable, 
and  every  place  on    the    route  which  offered  anything 


v.]  DEATH  OF  GRAY'S  MOTHER,  113 

curious  in  architecture,  the  subject  at  this  moment  most  in 
Gray's  thoughts,  was  visited  and  described  in  the  note-book. 
Gray  remained  for  two  whole  months  and  more  in  Dr. 
Wharton's  house  at  Durham,  associating  with  the  bishop, 
Dr.  Trevor,  and  having  u  one  of  the  most  beautiful  vales 
in  England  to  walk  in,  with  prospects  that  change  every 
ten  steps,  and  open  something  new  wherever  I  turn  me, 
all  rude  and  romantic."  It  had  been  proposed  that  on  the 
return  journey  he  should  visit  Mason  at  Hull,  but  the  ill- 
ness of  that  gentleman's  father  prevented  this  scheme,  and 
the  friends  met  at  York  instead.  Gray  travelled  southwards 
for  two  days  with  "  a  Lady  Swinburne,  a  Roman  Catholic, 
not  young,  that  has  been  much  abroad,  seen  a  great  deal, 
knew  a  great  many  people,  very  chatty  and  communicative, 
so  that  I  passed  my  time  very  well."  I  regret  that  the 
now-living  and  illustrious  descendant  of  this  amusing  lady 
is  unable  to  tell  me  anything  definite  of  her  history. 

Gray  came  back  to  Cambridge  to  find  the  lime-trees 
changing  colour,  stayed  there  one  day,  and  was  just  pre- 
paring to  proceed  to  his  London  lodgings,  when  an  express 
summoned  him  to  Stoke,  where  his  aunt  Mrs.  Roofers 
had  suffered  a  stroke  of  the  palsy.  He  arrived  on  the 
6th  of  October,  to  find  everything  "  resounding  with  the 
wood-lark  and  robin,  and  the  voice  of  the  sparrow  heard 
in  the  land."  His  aunt,  who  was  in  her  seventy-eighth 
year,  had  rallied  to  a  surprising  degree,  and  her  recovery 
was  not  merely  temporary.  It  would  seem  from  an  ex- 
pression in  one  of  his  letters,  that  his  paternal  aunt,  Mrs. 
Oliffe,  had  now  gone  down  from  ^Norwich  to  Stoke,  to  live 
with  Mrs.  Rogers.  I  do  not  remember  that  the  history  of 
literature  presents  us  with  the  memoirs  of  any  other  poet 
favoured  by  nature  with  so  many  aunts  as  Gray  possessed. 
Stoke  was  not  a  home   for  Gray  with  Mrs.  Rogers  bed- 

I 


114  GKAY.  [chap. 

ridden  and  with  Mrs.  Oliffe  for  its  other  inmate.  The 
hospitable  Whartons  seem  again  to  have  taken  pity  on 
him,  and  he  went  from  Jermyn  Street  up  to  Durham  to 
spend  with  them  Christmas  of  this  same  year,  1753. 

Walpole  remarked  that  Gray  was  "  in  flower  "  during 
these  years  1750 — 1755.  It  was  the  blossoming  of  a 
shrub  which  throws  out  only  one  bud  each  season,  and 
that  bud  sometimes  nipped  by  an  untimely  frost.  The 
rose  on  Gray's  thorn  for  1754  was  an  example  of  these 
blighted  flowers,  that  never  fully  expanded.  The  Ode  on 
Vicissitude,  which  was  found  after  the  poet's  death,  in  a 
pocket-book  of  that  year,  should  have  been  one  of  his 
finest  productions,  but  it  is  unrevised  and  hopelessly 
truncated.  Poor  Mason  rushed  in  where  a  truer  poet 
might  have  feared  to  tread,  and  clipped  the  straggling 
lines,  and  finished  it ;  six  complete  stanzas,  however, 
are  the  genuine  work  of  Gray.  The  verse-form  has  a 
catch  in  the  third  line,  which  is  perhaps  the  most 
delicate  metrical  effect  Gray  ever  attained ;  while  some 
of  the  nature-painting  in  the  poem  is  really  exquisite. 

New-born  flocks,  in  rustic  dance, 

Frisking  ply  their  feeble  feet ; 
Forgetful  of  their  wintry  trance, 

The  birds  his  presence  greet : 
But  chief  the  sky -lark  warbles  high 
His  trembling  thrilling  ecstasy, 
And,  lessening  from  the  dazzled  sight, 
Melts  into  air  and  liquid  light. 

Here  is  a  stanza  which  might  almost  be  Wordsworth's : — 

See  the  wretch,  that  long  has  tost 

On  the  thorny  bed  of  pain, 
At  length  repair  his  vigour  lost, 

And  breathe  and  walk  again : 


v.]  THE  ODE  ON  VICISSITUDE.  115 

Tbe  meanest  floweret  of  the  vale, 
The  simplest  note  that  swells  the  gale, 
The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 
To  him  are  opening  paradise. 

That  graceful  trifler  with  metre,  the  sprightly  Gresset, 
had  written  an  Epitre  a  ma  Sceur  to  which  Gray  frankly 
avowed  that  he  owed  the  idea  of  his  poem  on  Vicissitude. 
But  it  was  only  a  few  commonplaces  which  the  English 
poet  borrowed  from  the  French  one,  who  might,  indeed, 
remind  him  that — 

Mille  spectacles,  qu'autrefois 
On  voyait  avec  nonchalance, 
Transportent  aujourd'hui,  presentant  des  appas 
Inconnus  a  l'indifference, 

but  was  quite  incapable  of  Gray's  music  and  contempla- 
tive felicities.  This  Ode  on  Vicissitude  seems,  in  some 
not  very  obvious  way,  to  be  connected  with  the  death  of 
Pope.  It  is  possible  that  these  were  the  "  few  autumn 
verses "  which  Gray  began  to  write  on  that  occasion. 
His  manner  of  composition,  his  slow,  half-hearted, 
desultory  touch,  his  whimsical  fits  of  passing  inspiration, 
are  unique  in  their  kind  ;  there  never  was  a  professional 
poet  whose  mode  was  so  thoroughly  that  of  the  amateur. 

A  short  prose  treatise,  first  printed  in  1814,  and  named 
by  the  absurd  Mathias  Arcliitectura  Gothica,  although 
the  subject  of  it  is  purely  Norman  architecture,  seems  to 
belong  to  this  year  1754.  Gray  was  the  first  man  in 
England  to  understand  architecture  scientifically,  and  his 
taste  was  simply  too  pure  to  be  comprehended  in  an  age 
that  took  William  Kent  for  its  architectural  prophet. 
Even  among  those  persons  of  refined  feeling  who  desired 
to  cultivate  a  taste  for  old  English  buildings,  there  was  a 
sad  absence  of  exact  knowledge.     Akenside  thought  that 


116  GRAY.  [ch.  v. 

the  ruins  of  Persepolis  formed  a  beautiful  example  of  the 
Gothic  style  ;  and  we  know  that  Horace  Walpole  dazzled  his 
contemporaries  with  the  gimcrack  pinnacles  of  Strawberry 
Hill.     We  may  see   from   Bentley's   frontispiece  to  the 
Elegy,  where  a  stucco  moulding  is  half  torn  away,  and 
reveals  a  pointed  arch  of  brick- work,  that  even  among  the 
elect   the   true   principles   of    Gothic   architecture    were 
scarcely  understood.     What    Georgian    amateurs    really 
admired  was  a  grotto  with  cockle-shells  and  looking-glass, 
such   as   the    Greatheads  made  at   Guy's   Cliff,  or  such 
follies  in  foliage  as  Shenstone  perpetrated  at  Leasowes. 
Gray  strove  hard  to  clear  his  memory  of  all  such  trifling, 
and  to  arm  his  reason  against  arguments  such  as  those  of 
Pococke,  who  held  that  the  Gothic  arch  was  a  degradation 
of  the  Moorish  cupola,  or  of  Batty  Langley,  who  invented 
rive  orders  in  a  new  style  of  his  own.     Gray's  treatise  on 
Norman  architecture  is  so  sound  and  learned  that  it  is 
much  to  be  regretted  that  he  has  not  left  us  more  of  his 
architectural  essays.     He  formed  his  opinions  from  per- 
sonal observation  and  measurement.     Among  the  Pem- 
broke MSS.  there  are  copious  notes  of  a  tour  in  the  Fens, 
during  which  he  jotted   down  the   characteristics  of  all 
the  principal  minsters,  as  far  as  Crowland  and  Boston. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Gray  was  the  first  modern 
student  of  the  history  of  architecture.     Norton  Mcholls 
has  recorded  that  when  certain  would-be  people  of  taste 
were  wrangling  about  the  style  in  which  some  ancient 
building  was  constructed,  Gray  cut  the  discussion  short 
by  saying,  in  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  Call  it  what  you 
please,    but   allow   that   it   is    beautiful"     He   did   not 
approve  of  Walpole's  Gothic  constructions  at  Strawberry 
Hill,  and  frankly  told  him,  when  he  was  shown  the  gilding 
and  the  glass,  that  he  had  "  degenerated  into  finery." 


CHAPTER  VL 

THE   PINDARIC    ODES. 

It  is  not  known  at  what  time  Gray  resolved  on  composing 
poems  which  should  resemble  in  stanzaic  structure  the 
triumphal  odes  or  epzniMa  of  Pindar,  but  it  is  certain  that 
towards  the  close  of  1754  he  completed  one  such  elaborate 
lyric.  On  the  26th  of  December  of  that  year  he  gave  the 
finishing  touches  to  an  "  ode  in  the  Greek  manner,"  and 
sent  it  from  Cambridge  to  Dr.  Wharton,  with  the  remark, 
"  If  this  be  as  tedious  to  you  as  it  is  grown  to  me,  I  shall 

be  sorry  that  I  sent  it  you I  desire  you  would 

by  no  means  suffer  this  to  be  copied,  nor  even  show  it, 
unless  to  very  few,  and  especially  not  to  mere  scholars, 
that  can  scan  all  the  measures  in  Pindar,  and  say  the 
scholia  by  heart."  Months  later,  Mason  was  pleading  for 
a  copy,  but  in  vain.  The  poem  thrown  off  so  indifferently 
was  that  now  known  to  us  as  The  Progress  of  Poesy,  and 
it  marked  a  third  and  final  stage  in  Gray's  poetical 
development.  In  the  early  odes  he  had  written  for  his 
contemporaries ;  in  the  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard 
he  had  written  for  all  the  world  ;  in  the  Pindaric  Odes 
he  was  now  to  write  for  poets.  In  the  Elegy  he  had 
dared  to  leave  those  trodden  paths  of  phraseology  along 
which  the  critics  of  the  hour,  the  quibbling  Hurds  and 
Warburtons,    could   follow   him   step   by   step,    but   his 


118  GEAY.  [chap. 

startling  felicities  had  carried  his  readers  captive  by  their 
appeal  to  a  common  humanity.  He  was  now  about  to 
launch  upon  a  manner  of  writing  in  which  he  could  no 
longer  be  accompanied  by  the  plaudits  of  the  vulgar,  and 
where  his  style  could  no  longer  appeal  with  security  to 
the  sympathy  of  the  critics.  He  was  now,  in  other  words, 
about  to  put  out  his  most  original  qualities  in  poetry. 

That  he  could  not  hope  for  popularity,  he  was  aware  at 
the  outset;  "  be  assured,"  he  consoled  his  friends,  "that 
my  taste  for  praise  is  not  like  that  of  children  for  fruit ; 
if  there  were  nothing  but  medlars  and  blackberries  in  the 
world,  I  could  be  very  well  content  to  go  without  any  at 
all  f  he  could  wait  patiently  for  the  suffrage  of  his  peers. 
The  very  construction  of  the  poem  was  a  puzzle  to  his 
friends,  although  it  is  one  of  the  most  intelligibly  and 
rationally  built  of  all  the  odes  in  the  language.  It  is  in 
point  of  fact,  a  poem  of  three  stanzas,  in  an  elaborately 
consistent  verse  form,  with  forty-one  lines  in  each  stanza. 
The  length  of  these  periods  is  relieved  by  the  regular 
division  of  each  stanza  into  strophe,  antistrophe,  and 
epode,  the  same  plan  having  been  used  by  no  previous 
English  poet  but  Congreve,  who  had  written  in  1705  a 
learned  and  graceful  Discourse  on  the  Pindarique  Ode, 
which  Gray  was  possibly  acquainted  with.  Congreve's 
practice,  however,  had  been  as  unsatisfactory  as  his  theory 
was  excellent,  and  Gray  was  properly  the  first  poet  to 
comprehend  and  follow  the  mode  of  Pindar. 

Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  has  pointed  out  that  the  evolution 
of  The  Progress  of  Poesy  is  no  less  noble  and  sound  than 
its  style.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  power  of  evolu- 
tion has  not  been  common  among  lyrical  poets  even  of  a 
high  rank.  Even  in  Milton  it  is  strangely  absent,  and  we 
feel  that  all  his  odes,  beautiful  as  they  are,  do  not  bud  and 


vi.-}  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  119 

branch  and  fall  in  fruit,  closing  with  the  exhaustion  of 
their  functions,  hut  merely  cease,  because  all  poems  must 
stop  somewhere.  The  Nativity  Ode  does  not  close  because 
the  poet  has  nothing  more  to  say,  but  merely  because  "  'tis 
time  our  tedious  song  shonld  here  have  ending."  In 
Collins,  surely,  we  find  the  same  failing ;  the  poem  is  a 
burst  of  emotion,  but  not  an  organism.  The  much-lauded 
Ode  to  Liberty,  with  its  opening  peal  of  trumpet-music, 
ends  with  a  foolish  abruptness,  as  if  the  poet  had  got  tired 
of  his  instrument,  and  had  thrown  it  away.  Shelley, 
again,  in  his  longer  odes,  seems  to  lose  himself  in  beauti- 
ful meandering  oratory,  and  to  stop,  as  he  began,  in 
response  to  a  mere  change  of  purpose.  Keats,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  always  consistent  in  his  evolution,  and  so 
is  Wordsworth  at  his  more  elevated  moments ;  the  same 
may  even  be  remarked  of  a  poet  infinitely  below  these 
in  intellectual  value,  Edgar  Poe.  Gray,  however,  is  the 
main  example  in  our  literature  of  a  poet  possessing  this 
Greek  quality  of  structure  in  his  lyrical  work,  and  it  is  to 
be  noted  that  throughout  his  career  it  never  left  him, 
even  on  occasions  when  he  was  deserted  by  every  other 
form  of  inspiration.  His  poems,  whatever  they  are,  are 
never  chains  of  consecutive  stanzas ;  each  line,  each  group 
of  lines,  has  its  proper  place  in  a  structure  that  could  not 
be  shorter  or  longer  without  a  radical  re-arrangement  of 
ideas. 

The  strophe  of  the  opening  stanza  of  The  Progress  of 
Poesy  invokes  that  lyre  of  iEolian  strings,  the  breathings 
of  those  iEolian  flutes,  which  Pindar  had  made  the  symbol 
of  the  art  of  poetry,  and  the  sources,  progress,  and  various 
motion  of  that  art,  "  enriching  every  subject  with  a  pomp 
of  diction  and  luxuriant  harmony  of  numbers/'  are  de- 
scribed under  the  image  of  a  thousand  descending  streams. 


120  GRAY.  [chap. 

The  antistrophe  returns  to  the  consideration  of  the  power 
of  poetry,  not  now  in  motion,  but  an  alluring  and  a  sooth- 
ing force  around  which  the  Passions  throng  and  are  sub- 
dued, a  thought  being  here  borrowed  apjDarently  from 
Collins;  the  epode  continues  and  combines  these  two 
strains  of  thought,  and  shows  that  poetry,  whether  in 
motion  or  at  rest,  is  working  the  good  will  of  Love,  who 
deigns  herself  to  move  in  a  rhythmic  harmony,  and  be  the 
slave  of  verse.  In  the  second  stanza,  the  strophe  recalls 
the  miserable  state  of  man,  relieved  by  the  amenities  of 
the  heavenly  Muse,  who  arms  Hyperion  against  the  sickly 
company  of  Night;  the  antistrophe  shows  us  how  the 
need  of  song  arose  in  savage  man,  and  illuminated  "  their 
feather-cinctured  chiefs,  and  dusky  loves ; "  while  the  epode 
breaks  into  an  ecstatic  celebration  of  the  advent  of  poetic 
art  to  Greece  : — 

Woods,  that  wave  o'er  Delphi's  steep, 

Isles,  that  crown  th'  iEgean  deep, 
Fields,  that  cool  Ilissus  laves, 
Or  where  Mseander's  amber  waves 

In  lingering  labyrinths  creep, 

How  do  your  tuneful  echoes  languish, 
Mute,  but  to  the  voice  of  anguish ! 

Where  each  old  poetic  mountain 
Inspiration  breathed  around ; 

Every  shade  and  hallowed  fountain 
Murmured  deep  a  solemn  sound. 

But  the  Muses,  "  in  Greece's  evil  hour,"  went  to  Rome, 
and  "  when  Latium  had  her  lofty  spirit  lost,"  it  was  to 
Albion  that  they  turned  their  steps.  The  third  strophe 
describes  how  the  awful  Mother  unveiled  her  face  to 
Shakespeare ;  the  antistrophe  celebrates  the  advent  of 
Milton  and  Dryden,  while  the  final  epode  winds  the  whole 
poem  to  a  close  with  a  regret  that  the  lyre  once  held  by 


vi.]  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  121 

the  last-named  poet  has  degenerated  into  hands  like 
Gray's : — 

Hark !  his  Lands  the  lyre  explore  ! 

Bright- eyed  Fancy,  hovering  o'er, 

Scatters  from  her  pictured  urn 

Thoughts  that  breathe,  and  words  that  burn. 

But  ah  !  'tis  heard  no  more  — 

Oh !  lyre  divine,  what  daring  spirit 

Wakes  thee  now  ?     Though  he  inherit 
Not  the  pride,  nor  ample  pinion, 

That  the  Theban  eagle  bear, 
Sailing  with  supreme  dominion 

Thro'  the  azure  deep  of  air  : 
Yet  oft  before  his  infant  eyes  would  run 

Such  forms  as  glitter  in  the  Muse's  ray, 
With  orient  hues,  unborrowed  of  the  sun: 

Yet  shall  he  mount,  and  keep  his  distant  way 
Beyond  the  limits  of  a  vulgar  fate, 
'  Beneath  the  Good  how  far, — but  far  above  the  Great. 

In  these  passages,  especially  where  he  employs  the  double 
rhyme,  we  seem  to  catch  in  Gray  the  true  modern  accent, 
the  precursor  of  the  tones  of  Shelley  and  Byron,  both  of 
whom,  but  especially  the  former,  were  greatly  influenced 
by  this  free  and  ringing  music.  The  reader  has  only  to 
compare  the  epode  last  quoted  with  the  choruses  in  Hellas 
to  see  what  Shelley  owed  to  the  science  and  invention  of 
Gray.  This  manner  of  rhyming,  this  rapid  and  recurrent 
beat  of  song,  was  the  germ  out  of  which  have  sprung  all 
later  metrical  inventions,  and  without  which  Mr.  Swin- 
burne himself  might  now  be  polishing  the  heroic 
couplet  to  its  last  perfection  of  brightness  and  sharp- 
ness. 

Another  Pindaric  ode  on  The  Liberty  of  Genius  was 
planned  about  the  same  time,  but  of  this  there  exists  only 
the  following  fragment  of  an  argument : — "All  that  men 


122  GRAY.  [chap. 

of  power  can  do  for  men  of  genius  is  to  leave  them  at  their 
liberty,  compared  to  birds  that,  when  confined  to  a  cage, 
do  but  regret  the  loss  of  their  freedom  in  melancholy 
strains,  and  lose  the  luscious  wildness  and  happy  luxu- 
riance of  their  notes,  which  used  to  make  the  woods 
resound."  The  subject  is  one  well-fitted  to  its  author's 
power,  and  we  regret  its  loss  as  we  regret  that  of  Collins' 
Ode  on  the  Music  of  the  Grecian  Theatre.  Unlike  that 
blue  rose  of  the  bibliophiles,  however,  Gray's  ode  probably 
was  never  written  at  all. 

In  the  meantime  not  much  was  happening  to  Gray 
himself.  His  friend  Mason  had  taken  holy  orders,  and  in 
November  1754  had  become  rector  of  Aston  and  chap- 
lain to  the  Earl  of  Holdernesse ;  "  we  all  are  mighty  glad," 
says  Gray,  "  that  he  is  in  orders,  and  no  better  than  any 
of  us."  Early  in  1755  both  Mason  and  Walpole  set  upon 
Gray  to  publish  a  new  volume  of  poems,  whereupon  he 
held  up  the  single  ode  On  the  Progress  of  Poesy,  and  asked 
if  they  wished  him  to  publish  a  "little  sixpenny  flam" 
like  that,  all  by  itself.  He  threatened  if  Wharton  be  tire- 
some, since  the  publishing  faction  had  gained  him  over  to 
their  side,  to  write  an  ode  against  physicians,  with  some 
very  stringent  lines  about  magnesia  and  alicant  soap. 
Pembroke  meanwhile  had  just  received  an  undergraduate 
of  quality,  Lord  Strathmore,  Thane  of  Glamis,  "  a  tall, 
genteel  figure"  that  pleased  Gray,  and  presently  was 
admitted  within  the  narrow  circle  of  his  friends. 

According  to  Mason,  the  exordium  of  the  Bard  was  com- 
pleted in  March  1755,  having  occupied  Gray  for  about  three 
months.  In  the  case  of  this  very  elaborate  poem,  Gray 
seems  to  have  laid  aside  his  customary  reticence,  and  to  have 
freely  consulted  his  friends.  Mason  had  seen  the  beginning 
of  it  before  he  went  to  Germany  in  May  of  that  year,  when 


vi.]  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  123 

he  found  in  Hamburg  a  literary  lady  who  had  read  the 
"  Nitt  Toats"  of  Young,  and  thought  the  Elegy  in  a 
Country  Church-Yard  "bien  jolie  et  melancholique."  Mason 
at  Hanover  meets  Lord  Nuneham,  and  is  sure  that  Gray 
would  delight  in  him,  because  he  is  so  peevish  and  sensible 
and  so  good  a  hater,  which  gives  us  a  passing  glance  at 
Gray  himself.  The  Bard  was  exactly  two  years  and  five 
months  in  reaching  completion,  and  the  slowness  of  its 
growth  was  the  subject  of  mirth  with  Gray  himself,  who 
called  it  "  Odikle,"  and  made  fun  of  its  stunted  propor- 
tions. 

On  the  15th  of  July,  1755,  Gray  went  down  to  the  Vine, 
in  Hampshire,  to  visit  his  old  friend  Chute,  who  was  now 
beginning  to  recover  a  little  from  the  shock  of  the  death 
of  his  beloved  heir  and  nephew.  In  the  congenial  com- 
pany of  the  Italianate  country  gentleman  Gray  stayed  a 
few  days,  and  then  went  on  to  Southampton,  Winchester, 
Portsmouth,  and  Netley  Abbey,  returning  to  Stoke  on  the 
31st  of  July.  Unfortunately  he  either  took  a  chill  on  this 
little  tour,  or  overtaxed  his  powers,  and  from  this  time  to 
the  end  of  his  life,  a  period  of  sixteen  years,  he  was 
seldom  in  a  condition  of  even  tolerable  health.  In  August 
he  was  obliged  to  put  himself  under  medical  treatment; 
one  alarming  attack  of  gout  after  the  other  continued  to 
undermine  his  constitution,  and  his  system  was  further 
depressed  by  an  exhausting  regimen  of  magnesia  and  salts 
of  wormwood.  He  had  to  lie  up  at  Stoke  for  many  weeks, 
with  aching  feet  and  temples,  and  was  bled  until  he  was 
too  giddy  and  feeble  to  walk  with  comfort.  All  this 
autumn  and  winter  of  1755  his  symptoms  were  very 
serious.  He  could  not  sleep;  he  was  troubled  by  a  ner- 
vous deafness,  and  a  pain  in  the  region  of  the  heart  which 
seldom  left  him.     Meanwhile  he  did  not  leave  The  Bard 


124  GRAY.  [chap. 

untouched,  but  progressed  slowly  with  it,  as  though  he 
were  a  sculptor,  deliberately  pointing  and  chiselling  a 
statue.  He  adopted  the  plan  of  copying  strophes  and  frag- 
ments of  it  in  his  letters,  and  many  such  scraps  exist  in 
MS.  Late  in  the  autumn,  however,  he  thought  that  he 
was  falling  into  a  decline,  and  in  a  lit  of  melancholy  he 
laid  The  Bard  aside. 

Gray  was  altogether  in  a  very  nervous,  distracted 
condition  at  this  time,  and  first  began  to  show  symptoms 
of  that  fear  of  fire,  which  afterwards  became  almost  a 
mania  with  him,  by  desiring  Wharton  to  insure  the  two 
houses,  at  Wanstead  and  in  Cornhill,  which  formed  a 
principal  part  of  his  income ;  from  the  amount  of  the 
policies  of  these  houses,  we  can  infer  that  the  first  was  a 
property  of  considerable  value.  The  death  of  his  mother, 
following  on  that  of  Miss  Antrobus,  had,  it  may  here  be 
remarked,  removed  all  pressure  of  poverty  from  Gray  for 
the  remainder  of  his  life.  He  was  never  rich,  but  from 
this  time  forward  he  was  very  comfortably  provided  for. 
Horace  Walpole  appears  to  have  been  alarmed  at  his 
friend's  condition  of  health,  and  planned  a  change  of  scene 
for  him,  which  it  seems  unfortunate  that  he  could  not 
persuade  himself  to  undertake.  George  Hervey,  Earl  of 
Bristol,  was  named  English  Minister  at  Lisbon,  and  he 
offered  to  take  Gray  with  him  as  his  secretary,  but  the 
proud  little  poet  refused.  Perhaps  the  climate  of  Portugal 
might  have  proved  too  relaxing  for  him,  and  he  might 
have  laid  his  bones  beside  that  grave  where  the  grass  was 
hardly  green  yet  over  the  body  of  Fielding. 

Gray's  terror  of  fire  has  already  been  alluded  to,  and  it 
had  now  become  so  marked  as  to  be  a  subject  of  conver- 
sation in  the  college.  He  professed  rather  openly  to 
believe  that  some  drunken  fellow  or  other  would  burn  the 


vi.j  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  125 

college  down  about  their  heads.  On  the  9th  of  January, 
1756,  he  asked  Dr.  Wharton  to  buy  him  a  rope-ladder  of  a 
man  in  Wapping  who  advertised  such  articles.  It  was  to 
be  rather  more  than  thirty-six  feet  long,  with  strong  hooks 
at  the  top.  This  machine  Wharton  promptly  forwarded, 
and  Gray  proceeded  to  have  an  iron  bar  fixed  within  his 
bedroom-window.  This  bar,  crossing  a  window  which 
looks  towards  Pembroke,  still  exists  and  marks  Gray's 
chambers  at  Peterhouse.  Such  preparations,  however,  could 
not  be  made  without  attracting  great  attention  in  the  lat- 
ter college,  where  Gray  was  by  no  means  a  favourite  among 
the  high-coloured  young  gentlemen  who  went  bull-baiting 
to  Heddington  or  came  home  drunk  and  roaring  from  a 
cock- shying  at  Market  Hill.  Accordingly  the  noisy  fellow- 
commoners  determined  to  have  a  lark  at  the  timid  little 
poet's  expense,  and  one  night  in  February  1756,  when 
Gray  was  asleep  in  bed,  they  suddenly  alarmed  him  with 
a  cry  of  fire  on  his  staircase,  having  previously  placed  a 
tub  of  water  under  his  window.  The  ruse  succeeded  only 
too  well :  Gray,  without  staying  to  put  on  his  clothes, 
hooked  his  rope-ladder  to  the  iron  bar,  and  descended 
nimbly  into  the  tub  of  water,  from  which  he  was  rescued 
with  shouts  of  laughter  by  the  unmannerly  youths.  But 
the  jest  might  easily  have  proved  fatal ;  as  it  was,  he 
shivered  in  the  February  air  so  excessively  that  he  had  to 
be  wrapped  in  the  coat  of  a  passing  watchman,  and  to  be 
carried  into  the  college  by  the  friendly  Stonehewer,  who 
now  appeared  on  the  scene.  To  our  modern  ideas  this  out- 
rage on  a  harmless  middle-aged  man  of  honourable  position, 
who  had  done  nothing  whatever  to  provoke  insult  or 
injury,  is  almost  inconceivable.  But  there  was  a  deep 
capacity  for  brutal  folly  underneath  the  varnish  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  no  one  seems  to  have  sympathized 


126  GRAY.  [chap. 

with  Gray  or  to  have  thought  the  conduct  of  the  youths 
ungentlemanly.  As,  when  Dryden  was  beaten  by 
Rochester's  hired  and  masked  bravos,  it  was  felt  that 
Dryden  was  thereby  disgraced,  so  Gray's  friends  were 
consistently  silent  on  this  story,  as  though  it  were  a  shame 
to  him,  and  we  owe  our  knowledge  of  the  particulars  to 
strangers,  more  especially  to  a  wild  creature  called 
Archibald  Campbell,  who  actually  ventured  to  tell  the 
tale  during  Gray's  life-time. 

Gray  was  very  angry,  and  called  upon  the  authorities 
of  his  college  to  punish  the  offenders.  Mason  says : 
"  After  having  borne  the  insults  of  two  or  three  young 
men  of  fortune  longer  than  might  reasonably  have  been 
expected  from  a  man  of  less  warmth  of  temper,  Mr.  Gray 
complained  to  the  governing  part  of  the  Society,  and  not 
thinking  that  his  remonstrance  was  sufficiently  attended 
to,  quitted  the  College."  He  went  over  to  his  old  friends 
at  Pembroke,1  who  welcomed  him  with  one  accord  as  if  he 
had  been  "Mary  of  Yalens  in  person."  Under  the 
foundation  of  this  sainted  lady  he  remained  for  the  rest 
of  his  life,  comfortably  lodged,  surrounded  by  congenial 
friends,  and  "as  quiet  as  in  the  Grande  Chartreuse."  He 
does  not  seem  to  have  ever  been  appointed  to  a  fellowship 
at  Pembroke.  The  chambers  he  is  supposed  to  have 
occupied  are  still  shown,  a  large  low  room  at  the  western 
end  of  the  Hitcham  Building,  bright  and  pleasant,  with 
windows  looking  east  and  west.  He  adopted  habits  at 
Pembroke  which  he  had  never  indulged  in  at  Peterhouse. 
He  was  the  first,  and  for  a  long  while  the  only  person  in 
the  University  who  made  his  rooms  look  pretty.     He  took 

1  In  the  Admission-Book  at  Pembroke  there  is  this  entry : 
"  Thomas  Gray,  LL.B.,  admissus  est  ex  Collegio  Divi  Petro. 
March  (sic)  6,  1756." 


vi.]  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  127 

care  that  his  windows  should  be  always  full  of  mignonette 
or  some  other  sweetly-scented  plant,  and  he  was  famous 
for  a  pair  of  huge  Japanese  vases,  in  blue  and  white  china. 
His  servant,  Stephen  Hempstead,  had  to  keep  the  room 
as  bright  and  spick  as  an  old  lady's  bandbox,  and  not  an 
atom  of  dust  was  allowed  to  rest  on  the  little  harpsichord 
where  the  poet  used  to  sit  in  the  twilight  and  play  toc- 
catas of  Scarlatti  or  Pergolesi.  Here  for  fifteen  quiet 
years,  the  autumn  of  his  life,  Gray  lived  among  his  books, 
his  china,  and  his  pictures,  and  here  at  last  we  shall  see 
him  die,  with  the  good  Master  of  Pembroke,  le  Petit  Bon 
Homme,  holding  his  hand  in  the  last  services  of  friend- 
ship. Well  might  Gray  write  to  Wharton  (March  25th, 
1756) : — «  Eemoving  myself  from  Peterhouse  to  Pembroke 
may  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  aera  in  a  life  so  barren  of 
events  as  mine." 

Curiously  enough,  the  shock  and  agitation  of  the  scene 
that  has  been  just  described  appear  to  have  had  no  ill 
effect  upon  Gray's  health.  His  letters  at  this  time  became, 
on  the  contrary,  much  more  buoyant  in  tone.  In  April 
1756  an  extraordinary  concert  of  spiritual  music,  in  which 
the  Stabat  Mater  of  Pergolesi  was  for  the  first  time  given 
in  England,  drew  him  up  to  London  for  three  days, 
during  which  time  he  lodged  with  Wharton.  All  the 
ensuing  summer  Mason,  now  and  henceforth  known  as 
"  Scroddl.es  "  in  Gray's  correspondence,  was  perpetrating 
reams  of  poetry,  or  prose  astonished  out  of  its  better  nature 
at  the  sudden  invasion  of  its  provinces  by  rhyme.  A  terri- 
ble tragedy  of  Caractacus,  suggested  by  the  yet-unfinished 
Bard,  with  much  blank-verse  invocation  of  "Arviragus, 
my  bold,  my  breathless  boy,"  belongs  to  this  year  1756, 
and  can  now  be  read  only  by  a  very  patient  student  bent 
on  finding  how  nimble  Mason  could  be  in  borrowing  the 


128  GRAY.  [chap. 

mere  shell  and  outward  echo  of  Gray's  poetical  perform- 
ances.    The  famous 

While  through  the  west,  where  sinks  the  crimson  day, 
Meek  twilight  slowly  sails,  and  waves  her  banners  gray. 

which  Gray  pronounced  "superlative,"  and  which  the 
modern  reader  must  admit  to  be  pretty,  belong  also  to  this 
year,  and  are  to  be  found  in  an  ode  of  Mason's,  To  a 
Friend,  in  which  occurs  the  first  contemporary  celebration 
of  a  greater  name  in  literature  than  his  : — 

Through  this  still  valley  let  me  stray, 

Eapt  in  some  strain  of  pensive  GRAY, 

Whose  lofty  genius  bears  along 

The  conscious  dignity  of  Song ; 

And,  scorning  from  the  sacred  store 

To  waste  a  note  on  Pride  or  Power, 

Roves  through  the  glimmering  twilight  gloom 

And  warbles  round  each  rustic  tomb  : 

He,  too,  perchance,  (for  well  I  know, 

His  heart  can  melt  with  friendly  woe) 
He,  too,  perchance,  when  these  poor  limbs  are  laid, 
Will  heave  one  tuneful  sigh,  and  sooth  my  hovering  shade. 

Gray  must  have  smiled  at  this  foolish  tribute,  but  he 
valued  the  affection  that  prompted  it,  and  he  deigned  in  a 
fatherly  way  to  beg  Wharton  to  let  him  hear  if  these  odes 
were  favourably  spoken  of  in  London. 

The  scene  of  Mason's  Caractacus  was  laid  in  Mona,  and 
Gray  was  at  this  time  engaged  in  the  spiritual  ascension  of 
Snowdon,  with  "  Odikle  "  at  his  side.  "  I  hope  we  shall 
be  very  good  neighbours.  Any  Druidical  anecdotes  that  I 
can  meet  with  I  will  be  sure  to  send  you.  I  am  of  opinion 
that  the  ghosts  " — for,  alas  !  there  are  ghosts  in  Caractacus 
— "  will  spoil  the  picture,  unless  they  are  thrown  at  a  huge 
distance,  and   extremely    kept    down."      In   June    1756 


vi.]  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  129 

having  "no  more  pores  and  muscular  inflations,  and 
troubled  only  with  depression  of  mind/'"  Gray  at  Stoke 
rather  vaguely  proposed  to  Mason  at  Tunbridge  that  they 
should  spend  the  summer  together  on  the  Continent. 
"  Shall  we  go  in  time,  and  have  a  house  together  in  Swit- 
zerland ?  It  is  a  fine  poetical  country  to  look  at,  and  no- 
body there  will  understand  a  word  we  say  or  write." 
Mason  was  probably  too  much  a  child  of  his  age  to  relish 
going  to  Switzerland ;  moreover,  there  was  a  chaplaincy  to 
Lord  John  Cavendish  towards  which  Mason  was  extending 
a  greedy  finger  and  thumb,  and  he  preferred  to  remain  in 
the  happy  hunting-grounds  of  endowment.  Gray  laughed 
with  indulgent  contempt  at  his  young  friend's  grasping 
wishes,  though  when  this  intense  desire  for  place  passed 
all  decent  limits,  he  could  reprove  it  sharply  enough.  To 
the  sober  and  self-respecting  Gray,  who  had  never  asked 
for  anything  in  his  life,  to  intrigue  for  church-preferment 
was  the  conduct  of  a  child  or  a  knave,  and  he  accordingly 
persisted  in  treating  Mason  as  a  child. 

Very  little  progress  was  made  with  The  Bard  in  1756. 
In  December  of  that  year  "  Odikle  is  not  a  bit  grown,  though 
it  is  fine  mild  open  weather."  Suddenly  in  May  1757 
it  was  brought  to  a  conclusion  in  consequence  of  some 
concerts  given  at  Cambridge  by  John  Parry,  the  famous 
blind  harper,  who  lived  until  1782,  and  whose  son  was  one 
of  the  first  A.R.A.'s.  Gray's  account  of  the  extraordinary 
effect  that  this  man's  music  made  on  him  is  expressed  in 
that  light  vein  with  which  he  loved  td  conceal  deep 
emotion.  "  There  is  no  faith  in  man,  no,  not  in  a  Welsh- 
man;  and  yet  Mr.  Parry  has  been  here,  and  scratched  out 
such  ravishing  blind  harmony,  such  tunes  of  a  thousand 
years  old,  with  names  enough  to  choke  you,  as  have  set  all 
this  learned  body  a  dancing,  and  inspired  them  with  due 


130  GKAY.  [chap. 

reverence  for  my  old  Bard  his  countryman,  wherever  he 
shall  appear.  Mr.  Parry,  you  must  know,  has  put  my  Ode 
in  motion  again,  and  has  brought  it  at  last  to  a  conclusion. 
Tis  to  him,  therefore,  that  you  owe  the  treat  which  I  send 
you  enclosed ;  namely,  the  breast  and  merry-thought,  and 
rump  too  of  the  chicken  which  I  have  been  chewing 
so  long,  that  I  would  give  it  to  the  world  for  neck-beef  or 
cow-heel." 

The  Ode  so  rudely  spoken  of  is  no  less  than  that  Bard 
which  for  at  least  a  century  remained  almost  without  a 
rival  among  poems  cherished  by  strictly  poetical  persons 
for  the  qualities  of  sublimity  and  pomp  of  vision.  It  is 
only  in  the  very  latest  generation,  and  among  a  school  of 
extremely  refined  critics  that  the  ascendency  of  this  ode 
has  been  questioned,  and  certain  pieces  by  Collins  and 
even  by  Blake  preferred  to  it.  There  is  a  great  and  even 
a  legitimate  pleasure  in  praising  that  which  plainly  pos- 
sesses very  high  merit,  and  which  has  too  long  been  over- 
looked or  neglected  ;  but  we  must  beware  of  the  paradox 
which  denies  beauty  in  a  work  of  art,  because  beauty  has 
always  been  discovered  there.  Gray's  Bard  has  enjoyed 
an  instant  and  sustained  popularity,  while  Collins'  noble 
Ode  to  Liberty  has  had  few  admirers  and  Blake's  Book  of 
Tliel  till  lately  has  had  none ;  but  there  is  no  just  reason 
why  a  wish  to  assert  the  value  of  the  patriotic  fervour  of 
the  one  poem  and  the  rosy  effusion  of  the  other  should 
prevent  us  from  acknowledging  that,  great  as  are  the 
qualities  of  these  pieces,  the  human  sympathy,  historical 
imagination,  and  sustained  dithyrambic  dignity  of  The 
Bard,  are  also  great,  and  probably  greater.  All  that  has 
been  said  of  the  evolution  of  the  Progress  of  Poesy  is  true 
of  that  of  The  Bard,  while  those  attributes  which  our  old 
critics  used  to  term  "the  machinery"  are  even  more  bril- 


vi.]  THE  PINDAKIC  ODES.  131 

liant  and  appropriate  in  the  longer  poem  than  in  the  shorter. 
In  form  the  poems  are  sufficiently  analogous ;  each  has 
three  main  divisions,  with  strophe,  antistrophe,  and  epode, 
and  in  each  the  epode  is  dedicated  to  briskly  rhyming 
measures  and  experiments  in  metre.  The  opening  is  ad- 
mirably startling  and  effective ;  the  voice  that  meets  us 
with  its  denunciations  is  that  of  the  last  survivor  of  the 
ancient  race  of  Celtic  bards,  a  venerable  shape  who  is 
seated  on  a  rock  above  the  defile  through  which  the  forces 
of  Edward  I.  are  about  to  march.  This  mysterious  being, 
in  Gray's  own  words,  "  with  a  voice  more  than  human, 
reproaches  the  king  with  all  the  misery  and  desolation 
which  he  had  brought  on  his  country ;  foretells  the  mis- 
fortunes of  the  Norman  race,  and  with  prophetic  spirit 
declares,  that  all  his  cruelty  shall  never  extinguish  the 
noble  ardour  of  poetic  genius  in  this  island ;  and  that  men 
shall  never  be  wanting  to  celebrate  true  virtue  and  valour 
in  immortal  strains,  to  expose  vice  and  infamous  pleasure, 
and  boldly  censure  tyranny  and  oppression."  The  scheme 
of  the  poem,  therefore,  is  strictly  historical,  and  yet  is  not 
very  far  removed  from  that  of  Gray's  previous  written  and 
unwritten  Pindaric  odes.  In  these  three  poems,  the  dig- 
nity of  genius  and  its  function  as  a  ruler  and  benefactor 
of  mankind  are  made  the  chief  subject  of  discourse,  and  a 
mission  is  claimed  for  artists  in  verse  than  which  none  was 
ever  conceived  more  brilliant  or  more  august.  But,  for- 
tunately for  his  readers,  Gray  was  diverted  from  his  purely 
abstract  consideration  of  history  into  a  concrete  observation 
of  its  most  picturesque  forms,  and  forgot  to  trace  the 
"  noble  ardour  of  poetic  genius  "  in  painting  vivid  pictures 
of  Edward  II.  enduring  his  torture  in  Berkeley  Castle, 
and  of  the  massacre  of  the  bards  at  the  battle  of  Camlan. 
Some  of  the  scenes  which  pass  across  the  magic  mirror 


132  GRAY.  [chap. 

of  the  old  man's  imagination  are  unrivalled  for  concision 
and  force.  That  in  which  the  court  of  Elizabeth,  sur- 
rounded by  her  lords  and  her  poets,  flashes  upon  the 
inner  eye,  is  of  an  inimitable  felicity : — 

Girt  with  many  a  baron  bold, 
Sublime  their  starry  fronts  they  rear ; 

And  gorgeous  dames,  and  statesmen  old 
In  bearded  majesty,  appear ; 
In  the  midst  a  form  divine ! 
Her  eye  proclaims  her  of  the  Briton-line ; 
Her  lion-port,  her  awe-commanding  face, 
Attempered  sweet  to  virgin-grace. 
What  strings  symphonious  tremble  in  the  air, 

What  strains  of  vocal  transport  round  her  play. 
Hear  from  the  grave,  great  Taliessin,  hear ; 

They  breathe  a  soul  to  animate  thy  clay. 
Bright  Rapture  calls,  and  soaring  as  she  sings, 
Waves  in  the  eye  of  heaven  her  many-coloured  wings. 

This  closing  vision  of  a  pretty  but  incongruous  "  Rap- 
ture "  may  remind  us  that  the  crowning  fault  of  Gray  and 
his  school,  their  assumption  that  a  mythology  might  be 
formed  out  of  the  emotions  of  the  human  mind,  and  a  new 
Olympus  be  fitted  out  with  brand-new  gods  of  a  moralist's 
making,  is  rarely  prominent  in  The  Bard  or  the  Elegy  in  a 
Country  Churchyard,  his  two  greatest  works.  Some  use 
of  allegorical  abstraction  is  necessary  to  the  very  structure 
of  poetry,  and  is  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  our  most 
realistic  writers.  It  is  in  its  excess  that  it  becomes  ridicu- 
lous or  tedious,  as  in  Mason  and  other  imitators  of  Gray. 
The  master  himself  was  not  by  any  means  able  at  all  times 
to  clothe  his  abstractions  with  flesh  and  blood,  but  he  is 
never  ridiculous.  He  felt,  indeed,  the  danger  of  the  ten- 
dency in  himself  and  others,  and  he  made  some  remarks 
on  the  subject  to  Mason  which  were  wholly  salutary  : — 


vi.]  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  133 

I  had  rather  some  of  these  personages,  "Resignation," 
"  Peace,"  "  Revenge,"  "  Slaughter,"  "  Ambition,"  were 
stripped  of  their  allegorical  garb.  A  little  simplicity  here  and 
there  in  the  expression  would  better  prepare  the  high  and  fan- 
tastic strain,  and  all  the  imaginable  harpings  that  follow.  .  .  . 
The  true  lyric  style,  with  all  its  nights  of  fancy,  ornaments,  and 
heightening  of  expression,  and  harmony  of  sound,  is  in  its 
nature  superior  to  every  other  style ;  which  is  just  the  cause 
why  it  could  not  be  borne  in  a  work  of  great  length,  no  more 
than  the  eye  could  bear  to  see  all  this  scene  that  we  constantly 
gaze  upon, — the  verdure  of  the  fields  and  woods,  the  azure  of 
the  sea  and  skies,  turned  into  one  dazzling  expanse  of  gems. 
The  epic,  therefore,  assumed  a  style  of  graver  colours,  and  only 
stuck  on  a  diamond  (borrowed  from  her*  sister)  here  and  there, 
where  it  best  became  her.  When  we  pass  from  the  diction  that 
suits  this  kind  of  writing  to  that  which  belongs  to  the  former, 
it  appears  natural,  and  delights  us :  but  to  pass  on  a  sudden 
from  the  lyric  glare  to  the  epic  solemnity  (if  I  may  be  allowed  to 
talk  nonsense)  has  a  very  different  effect.  We  seem  to  drop 
from  verse  into  mere  prose,  from  light  into  darkness.  Do  you 
not  think  if  Mingotti  stopped  in  the  middle  of  her  best  air,  and 
only  repeated  the  remaining  verses  (though  the  best  Metastasio 
ever  wrote)  that  they  would  not  appear  very  cold  to  you,  and 
very  heavy  ? 

Between  Dryden  and  Wordsworth  there  was  no  man 
but  Gray  who  could  write  in  prose  about  his  art  with  such 
coherence  and  science  as  this.  These  careless  sentences 
outweigh  tomes  of  Blair's  glittering  rhetoric  and  Hurd's 
stilted  disquisitions  on  the  Beautiful  and  the  Elevated. 

Almost  directly  after  Gray  had  finished  Tlie  Bard  he 
was  called  upon  to  write  an  epitaph  for  a  lady,  Mrs.  Jane 
Clarke,  who  had  died  in  childbirth  at  Epsom,  where  her 
husband  was  a  physician,  on  the  27th  of  April,  1757. 
Dr.  Clarke  had  been  an  early  college  friend  of  Gray's,  and 
he  applied  to  Gray  to  write  a  copy  of  verses  to  be  inscribed 


134  GEAY.  [chap. 

on  a  tablet  in  Beckenham  Church,  where  his  wife  was 
buried.  Gray  wrote  sixteen  lines,  not  in  his  happiest 
vein,  and  these  found  their  way  into  print  after  his  death. 
In  his  tiny  nosegay  there  is  perhaps  no  flower  so  incon- 
siderable as  this  perfunctory  Epitaph.  One  letter,  several 
years  later  than  the  date  of  this  poem,  proves  that  Gray 
continued  to  write  on  intimate  terms  to  Dr.  Clarke,  who 
does  not  seem  to  have  preserved  the  poet's  correspondence, 
and  is  not  otherwise  interesting  to  us.  In  April  Gray 
made  another  acquaintance,  of  a  very  different  kind; 
Lord  Nuneham,  a  young  man  of  fashion  and  fortune, 
with  a  rage  for  poetry,  came  rushing  down  upon  him  with 
a  letter  of  introduction  and  a  profusion  of  compliments. 
He  brought  a  large  bouquet  of  jonquils,  which  he  presented 
to  the  poet  with  a  reverence  so  profound  that  Gray  could 
not  fail  to  smell  the  jessamine-powder  in  his  periwig,  and 
indeed  he  was  too  fine  "  even  forme,"  says  the  poet,  "  who 
love  a  little  finery."  Lord  Nuneham  came  expressly  in 
Newmarket  week  to  protest  against  going  to  Newmarket, 
and  sat  devoutly  at  Gray's  feet,  half  fop,  half  enthusiast, 
for  three  whole  days,  talking  about  verses  and  the  fine 
arts.  Gray  was  quite  pleased  with  him  at  last ;  and  so 
"we  vowed  eternal  friendship,  embraced,  and  parted." 
Lord  John  Cavendish,  too,  was  in  Cambridge  at  this  time, 
and  also  pleased  Gray,  though  in  a  very  different  and  less 
effusive  manner. 

In  the  summer  of  1757  Horace  Walpole  set  up  a 
printing-press  at  Strawberry  Hill,  and  persuaded  Gray  to 
let  his  Pindaric  Odes  be  the  first  issue  of  the  establish- 
ment. Accordingly  Gray  sent  him  a  MS.  copy  of  the 
poems,  and  they  were  set  up  with  wonderful  fuss  and  cir- 
cumstance by  Walpole's  compositor;  Gray  being  more 
than   usually   often   at    Strawberry   Hill    this    summer. 


vi.]  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  135 

Dodsley  agreed  to  publish  the  book,  and  2000  copies  were 
struck  off.     On  the  29th  of  June    Gray  received  forty 
guineas,  the  only  money  he  ever  gained  by  literature.     On 
the  8th  of  August  there  was  published  a  large  thin  quarto, 
entitled  "  Odes  by  Mr.  Gray.    Qoivavra  <tvv€toutl.    Printed 
at  Strawberry  Hill  for  R   and  J.  Dodsley  in  Pall  Mall," 
with  an  engraving  of  Walpole's  little  gimcrack  dwelling  on 
the  title-page.     The  two  odes  have  no  other  titles  than 
Ode  I.,  Ode  II. ;  they  form  a  pamphlet  of  twenty-one 
pages,  and  were  sold  at  one  shilling.     Small  as  the  volume 
was,  however,  it  was  by  no  means  insignificant,   and  it 
achieved  a  very  great  success.     Garrick   and  Warburton 
led   the   chorus  of  praise;    the  famous   actor   publishing 
some  verses  in  honour  of  the  odes,  the  famous  critic  pro- 
nouncing them  above   the  grasp  of  the  public,  and  this 
indeed  was -true.     In  fact  Gray  lamented,  as  most  men  of 
genius  have  had  to  lament,  that  the  praise  he  received 
was  not  always  judicious  praise,  and  therefore  of  little 
worth.     "  The  2wcro«,"  he  says,  "  appear  to  be  still  fewer 
than  even  I  expected."     He  became,  however,  a  kind  of 
lion.     Goldsmith  wrote   an  examination  of  the  Odes  for 
the  Monthly  Review.     The  Cobhams,  at  Stoke,  were  very 
civil,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Garrick  came  down  there  to  stay 
with  him  ;  the  stiff,  prim  demeanour  of  Dr.  Hurd  melted 
into  smiles  and  compliments ;  the  Critical  Review  was  in 
raptures,  though  it  mistook  the  ^Eolian  Lyre  for  the  Harp 
of  iEolus  ;  and  at  York  Eaces  sporting  peers  were  heard 
to   discuss   the   odes   in   a   spirit  of   bewildered  eulogy. 
Within  two  months  1300  copies  had  been  sold.     Best  of 
all,   Miss  Speed  seemed  to   understand,   and   whispered 
"  <f}U)vavTa  (TvvtToiai "  in  the  most  amiable  and  sympathetic 
tones.      But  Gray   coidd   enjoy   nothing:    several   little 
maladies  hung  over  him,   the  general  wreck  of  his  frail 


136  GRAY.  [chap. 

constitution  began  to  be  imminent.  Meanwhile  small 
things  worried  him.  The  great  Mr.  Fox  did  not  wonder 
Edward  I.  could  not  understand  what  the  Bard  was  say- 
ing, and  chuckled  at  his  own  wit ;  young  Lord  Nuneham, 
for  all  his  jonquils  and  his  jessamine-powder,  did  not 
trouble  himself  to  acknowledge  his  presentation  copy; 
people  said  Gray's  style  was  "  impenetrable  and  inex- 
plicable," and  altogether  the  sweets  were  fewer  than 
the  bitters  in  the  cup  of  notoriety. 

Gray  had  placed  himself,  however,  at  one  leap  at  the 
head  of  the  living  English  poets.  Thomson  and  Blair 
were  now  dead,  Dyer  was  about  to  pass  away,  and  Collins, 
hopelessly  insane,  was  making  the  cloisters  of  Chichester 
resound  with  his  terrible  shrieks.  Young,  now  very  aged, 
had  almost  abandoned  verse.  Johnson  had  retired  from 
all  competition  with  the  poets.  Smart,  whose  frivolous 
verses  had  been  collected  in  1754,  had  shown  himself,  in 
his  few  serious  efforts,  a  direct  disciple  and  imitator  of 
Gray's  early  style.  Goldsmith,  Churchill,  and  Cowper 
were  still  unheard  of ;  and  the  only  men  with  whom 
Gray  could  for  a  moment  be  supposed  to  contend  were 
Shenstone  and  Akenside.  Practically  both  of  these  men, 
also,  had  retired  from  poetry,  the  latter  indeed  having 
been  silent  for  twelve  years.  The  Odes  could  hardly  fail 
to  attract  attention  in  a  year  which  produced  no  other  even 
noticeable  publication  in  verse,  except  Dyer's  tiresome 
descriptive  poem  of  The  Fleece.  Gray  seems  to  have  felt 
that  his  genius,  his  "  verve  "  as  he  called  it,  was  trying 
to  breathe  in  a  vacuum ;  and  from  this  time  forward  he 
made  even  less  and  less  effort  to  concentrate  his  powers. 
In  the  winter  of  1757,  it  is  true,  he  began  to  plan 
an  epic  or  didactic  poem  on  the  Revival  of  Learning, 
but  we  hear  no  more  of  it.     His  few  remaining  poems 


vi.]  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  137 

were   to  be  lyrics,   pure    and  simple,   swallow-flights    of 
song. 

On  the  12th  of  December,  1757,  Colley  Cibber  died, 
having  held  the  office  of  poet-laureate  for  twenty-seven 
years.  Lord  John  Cavendish  immediately  suggested  to 
his  brother,  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  who  was  then  Lord 
Chamberlain,  that  as  Gray  was  the  greatest  living  poet, 
the  post  should  be  offered  to  him.  This  was  immediately 
done,  in  very  handsome  terms,  the  duke  even  offering  to 
waive  entirely  the  perfunctory  writing  of  odes,  which  had 
hitherto  been  deemed  an  annual  duty  of  all  poets  laureate. 
Gray  directed  Mason,  through  whom  the  offer  had  been 
made,  to  decline  it  very  civilly  : — 

Though  I  well  know  the  bland  emollient  saponaceous  qualities 
both  of  sack  and  silver,  yet  if  any  great  man  would  say  to  me 
"  I  make  you  Rat-catcher  to  his  Majesty,  with  a  salary  of  3001. 
a-year  and  two  butts  of  the  best  Malaga ;  and  though  it  has 
been  usual  to  catch  a  mouse  or  two,  for  form's  sake,  in  public 
once  a  year,  yet  to  you,  sir,  we  shall  not  stand  upon  these  things,'' 
I  cannot  say  I  should  jump  at  it ;  nay  if  they  would  drop  the 
very  name  of  the  office,  and  call  me  Sinecure  to  the  King's 
Majesty,  I  should  still  feel  a  little  awkward,  and  think  every- 
body I  saw  smelt  a  rat  about  me  ;  but  I  do  not  pretend  to  blame 
any  one  else  that  has  not  the  same  sensations  ;  for  my  part  I 
would  rather  be  serjeant-trumpeter  or  pin-maker  to  the  palace. 
Nevertheless,  I  interest  myself  a  little  in  the  history  of  it,  and 
rather  wish  somebody  may  accept  it  that  will  retrieve  the  credit 
of  the  thing,  if  it  be  retrievable,  or  ever  had  any  credit.  Eowe 
was,  i  think,  the  last  man  of  character  that  had  it.  As  to 
Settle,  whom  you  mention,  he  belonged  to  my  lord  mayor,  not  to 
the  king.  Eusden  was  a  person  of  great  hopes  in  his  youth, 
though  at  last  he  turned  out  a  drunken  parson.  Dryden  was  as 
disgraceful  to  the  office,  from  his  character,  as  the  poorest 
scribbler  could  have  been  from  his  verses.     The  office  itself  has 


138  GRAY.  [chap. 

always  humbled  the  professor  hitherto  (even  in  an  age  when 
kings  were  somebody),  if  he  were  a  poor  writer  by  making 
him  more  conspicuous,  and  if  he  were  a  good  one  by  setting 
him  at  war  with  the  little  fry  of  his  own  profession,  for  there 
are  poets  little  enough  to  envy  even  a  poet  laureate. 

The  duke  acted  promptly,  for  within  a  week  of  Cibber's 
death  the  laureateship  had  been  offered  to  Gray,  who 
refused,  and  to  Whitehead,  who  accepted  it.  This  amiable 
versifier  was  perhaps  more  worthy  of  the  .compliment 
than  Mason,  who  wished  for  it,  and  who  raged  with  dis- 
appointment. 

In  January,  1758,  Gray  seems  to  have  recovered  suffi- 
ciently to  be  so  busy  buying  South  Sea  annuities,  and 
amassing  old  china  jars  and  three-legged  stools  with  grass- 
green  bottoms,  that  he  could  not  supply  Mason  with  that 
endless  flood  of  comment  on  Mason's  odes,  tragedies,  and 
epics  which  the  vivacious  poetaster  demanded.  Hurd,  in 
the  gentlemanly  manner  to  which  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen 
has  dedicated  one  stringent  page,  was  calling  upon  Gray 
to  sympathize  with  him  about  the  wickedness  of  "  that 
wretch"  Akenside.  In  all  this  Gray  had  but  slight 
interest.  His  father's  fortune,  which  had  reached  10,000/. 
in  his  mother's  careful  hands,  had  been  much  damaged  by 
the  fire  in  Cornhill,  and  Gray  now  sank  a  large  portion 
of  his  property  in  an  annuity,  that  he  might  enjoy  a 
larger  income.  During  the  spring  of  1758  he  amused 
himself  by  writing  in  the  blank  leaves  of  Kitchen's  Eng- 
lish Atlas  A  Catalogue  of  the  Antiquities,  Houses,  fyc,  in 
England  and  Wales.  This  was  considerable  enough  to 
form  a  little  volume,  and  in  1774,  after  Gray's  death, 
Mason  printed  a  few  copies  of  it  privately,  and  sent  them 
round  to  Gray's  friends  j  and  in  1787  issued  a  second 
edition  for  sale. 


vi.]  THE  PINDARIC  ODES.  139 

In  April  of  the  same  year,  1758,  Dr.  Wharton  lost 
his  eldest  and  at  that  time  his  only  son.     Gray  not  only 
wrote  him  a  very  touching  letter  of  condolence,  but  some 
verses  on  the  death  of  the  child,  which  I  first  printed 
in  1885  from  a  MS.  in  the  handwriting  of  Dyce.     In 
May,  Gray  started  on  that  architectural  tour  in  the  Fens, 
of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  and  in  June  was  sum- 
moned to  Stoke  by  the  illness  of  his  aunt  Mrs.  Oliffe,  who 
had  a  sort  of  paralytic  stroke  while  walking  in  the  garden. 
She  recovered,  however,  and  Gray  returned  to  London, 
made  a  short  stay  at  Hampton  with  Lord  and  Lady  Cob- 
ham,  and  spent  July  at  Strawberry  Hill.      In  August  the 
Garricks  again  visited  him  at  Stoke,  but  he  had  hardly 
enough  physical  strength  to  endure  their  vivacity.     "  They 
are  now  gone,  and  I  am  not  sorry  for  it,  for  I  grow  so  old, 
that,  I  own,  people  in  high  spirits  and  gaiety  overpower 
me,  and  entirely  take  away  mine.     I  can  yet  be  diverted 
by  their  sallies,  but  if  they  appear  to  take  notice  of  my 
dullness,  it  sinks  me  to  nothing.  ...  I  continue  better 
than  has  been  usual  with  me,  in  the  summer,  though  I 
neither  walk  nor  take  anything  :   'tis  in  mind  only  that  I 
am  weary  and  disagreeable."     His  position  at  Stoke,  with 
Mrs.   Oliffe  laid  up,  and  poor    bed-ridden  Mrs.   Rogers 
growing  daily  weaker  and  weaker,  was  not  an  exhilarating 
one.      Towards  the  end  of  September,  Mrs.  Rogers  re- 
covered her  speech,  which  had  for  several  years  been  almost 
unintelligible,  nickered  up  for  two  or  three  days,  and  then 
died.     She  left  Mrs.   Oliffe  joint  executrix  of  her  small 
property  with  Gray,  who  describes  himself  in  November 
1758  as  "  agreeably  employed  in  dividing  nothing  with  an 
old  Harridan,  who  is  the  Spawn  of  Cerberus  and  the 
Dragon  of   Wantley."       In    January  1759    Mrs.    Oliffe 
having  taken  herself  off  to  her  native  country  of  Norfolk, 


140  GRAY.  [oh.  vi. 

Gray  closed  the  house  at  Stoke  Pogis,  and  from  this  time 
forth  only  visited  that  village,  which  had  been  his  home 
for  nearly  twenty  years,  when  he  was  invited  to  stay  at 
Stoke  House.  At  the  same  time,  to  the  distress  of  Dr. 
Brown,  he  ceased  to  reside  at  Pembroke,  and  spent  the 
next  three  years  in  London. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

BRITISH    MUSEUM — NORTON    NICHOLLS. 

When  the  Sloane  Collection  became  national  property  at 
the  death  of  its  founder  in  1753,  and  was  incorporated 
under  an  act  which  styled  it  the  British  Museum,  scholars 
and  antiquaries  expected  to  enter  at  once  upon  their  in- 
heritance. But  a  site  and  a  building  had  to  be  secured, 
and  when  these  were  discovered,  it  took  a  long  while  to  fit 
up  the  commodious  galleries  of  Montagu  House.  On  the 
15th  of  January,  1759,  the  Museum  was  thrown  open  to 
the  public,  and  among  the  throng  of  visitors  was  Gray, 
who  had  settled  himself  and  his  household  gods  close  by, 
in  Southampton  Eow,  and  who  for  some  weeks  had  been 
awaiting  the  official  Sesame.  He  had  been  seeing  some- 
thing of  London  society  meanwhile,  —  entertained  by 
Lady  Carlisle,  invited  to  meet  Rousseau,  and  attending 
concerts  and  plays.  He  gives  some  account  of  the  per- 
formance of  Metastasio's  Ciro  Riconoscudo,  with  Cocchi's 
agreeable  music. 

The  British  Museum  he  found  "indeed  a  treasure." 
It  was  at  first  so  crowded  that  "  the  corner  room  in  the 
basement,  furnished  with  a  wainscot  table  and  twenty 
chairs,"  was  totally  inadequate  to  supply  the  demand,  and 
in  order  to  be  comfortable  it  was  necessary  to  book  a  place 
a  fortnight  beforehand     This  pressure,  however,  only  lasted 


142  GRAY.  [chap. 

for  a  very  short  time  ;  curiosity  was  excited  by  the  novelty, 
but  quickly  languished,  and  this  little  room  was  found 
quite  ample  enough  to  contain  the  scholars  who  frequented 
it.  To  reach  it,  the  intrepid  reader  had  to  pass  in  dark- 
ness, like  Jonah,  through  the  belly  of  a  whale,  from  which 
he  emerged  into  the  room  of  the  Keeper  of  Printed  Books, 
Dr.  Peter  Templeman,  a  physician  who  had  received  this 
responsible  post  for  having  translated  Norden's  Travels,  and 
who  resigned  it,  wearily,  in  1761,  for  a  more  congenial 
appointment  at  the  Society  of  Arts.  By  July  1759  the 
rush  on  the  reading-room  had  entirely  subsided,  and  on 
the  -23rd  of  that  month  Gray  mentions  to  Mason  that 
there  are  only  five  readers  that  day.  These  were  Gray 
himself,  Dr.  Stukeley  the  antiquary,  and  three  hack-writers 
who  were  copying  MSS.  for  hire. 

A  little  later  on,  Gray  became  an  amused  witness  of 
those  factions  which  immediately  broke  out  among 
the  staff  of  the  British  Museum,  and  which  practically 
lasted  until  a  very  few  years  ago.  People  who  were 
the  diverted  or  regretful  witnesses  of  dissensions  be- 
tween a  late  Principal  Librarian  and  the  scholars  whom 
he  governed  may  be  consoled  to  learn  that  things 
were  just  as  bad  in  1759.  Dr.  Gawin  Knight,  the  first 
Principal  Librarian,  a  pompous  martinet  with  no  pretence 
to  scholarship,  made  life  so  impossible  to  the  keepers  and 
assistants  that  the  Museum  was  completely  broken  into  a 
servile  and  a  rebellious  faction.  Gray,  moving  noiselessly 
to  and  fro,  noted  all  this  and  smiled ;  "  the  whole  society, 
trustees  and  all,  are  up  in  arms,  like  the  fellows  of  a  col- 
lege." Dr.  Knight  made  no  concessions ;  the  keepers 
presently  refused  to  salute  him  when  they  passed  his 
window,  and  Gray  and  his  fellow-readers  were  at  last 
obliged  to  make  a  detour  every  day,  because  Dr.  Knight 


vil]  BRITISH  MUSEUM.  143 

had  walled  up  a  passage  in  order  to  annoy  the  keepers. 
Meanwhile  the  trustees  were  spending  500L  a  year  more 
than  their  income,  and  Gray  confidently  predicts  that 
before  long  all  the  books  and  the  crocodiles  and  Jonah's 
whale  will  be  put  up  to  public  auction. 

At  Mr  Jermyn's,  in  Southampton  Row,  Bloomsbury, 
Gray  was  very  comfortably  settled.  It  was  a  cleaner 
Bloomsbury  than  we  know  now,  and  a  brighter.  Gray 
from  his  bedroom-window  looked  out  on  a  south-west 
garden- wall  covered  with  flowering  jessamine  through  June 
and  July.  There  had  been  roses,  too,  in  this  London 
garden.  Gray  must  always  have  flowers  about  him,  and 
he  trudged  down  to  Covent  Garden  every  day,  for  his 
sweet  peas  and  pinks,  scarlet  martagon-lilies,  double  stocks, 
and  flowering  marjoram.  His  drawing-room  looked  over 
Bedford  Gardens,  and  a  fine  stretch  of  upland  fields, 
crowned  at  last,  against  the  sky,  by  the  villages  of  High- 
gate  and  Hampstead.  St.  Giles's  was  at  his  back,  with 
many  a  dirty  court  and  alley,  but  in  front  of  him  against 
the  morning  light,  there  was  little  but  sunshine  and 
greenery  and  fresh  air.  He  seems  to  notice  nature  here 
on  the  outskirts  of  London  far  more  narrowly  than  at 
Cambridge ;  there  are  little  parenthetical  notes,  asides  to 
himself,  about  "  fair  white  flying  clouds  at  9  in  the  morn- 
ing" of  a  July  day,  or  wheelbarrows  heaped  up  with  small 
black  cherries  on  an  August  afternoon.  He  bought  twenty 
walnuts  for  a  penny  on  the  8th  of  September,  and  enjoyed 
a  fine  perdrigon-plum  upon  the  4th. 

Meanwhile  he  is  working  every  day  at  the  Museum, 
feasting  upon  literary  plums  and  walnuts,  searching 
the  original  Ledger-Book  of  the  Signet,  copying  Sir 
Thomas  "Wyatt's  Defence  and  his  poems,  discovering 
"several  odd  things  unknown    to    our   historians,"   and 


14*  GRAY.  [chap. 

nursing  his  old  favourite  project  of  a  History  of  English 
Poetry.  He  spent  as  a  rule  four  hours  a  day  in  the 
reading-room,  this  being  as  much  as  his  very  delicate 
health  could  bear,  for  repeated  attacks  of  the  gout  had 
made  even  this  amount  of  motion  and  cramped  repose 
sometimes  very  difficult. 

On  the  23rd  of  September,  1759,  poor  Lady  Cobham, 
justly  believing  herself  to  be  dying,  summoned  Gray  down 
to  Stoke  House.  She  was  suffering  from  dropsy,  and 
being  in  a  very  depressed  condition  of  mind,  desired  him 
not  to  leave  her.  He  accordingly  remained  with  her 
three  weeks,  and  then  accompained  her  and  Miss  Speed 
to  town,  whither  Lady  Cobham  was  recommended  to  come 
for  advice.  She  still  did  not  wish  to  part  from  him,  and 
he  stayed  until  late  in  November  in  her  house  in  Hanover 
Square.  He  has  some  picturesque  notes  of  the  beautiful 
old  garden  at  Stoke  that  autumn,  rich  with  carnations, 
marygolds  and  asters,  and  with  great  clusters  of  white 
grapes  on  warm  south  walls.  After  watching  beside  Lady 
Cobham  for  some  weeks,  and  finding  no  reason  to  antici- 
pate a  sudden  change  in  her  condition,  he  returned  to  his 
own  lodging  in  Southampton  Eow,  and  plunged  again  into 
MSS.  of  Lydgate  and  Hoccleve. 

It  was  while  Gray  was  quietly  vegetating  in  Bloomsbury 
that  an  event  occurred  of  which  he  was  quite  unconscious, 
which  yet  has  singularly  endeared  him  to  the  memory  of 
Englishmen.  On  the  evening  of  the  12th  of  September, 
1759,— while  Gray,  sauntering  back  from  the  British 
Museum  to  his  lodgings,  noted  that  the  weather  was 
cloudy,  with  a  S.S.W.  wind, — on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic  the  English  forces  lay  along  the  river  Mont- 
morency, and  looked  anxiously  across  at  Quebec  and  at 
the  fateful  heights  of  Abraham.     When  night-fall  came. 


Vii.]  BRITISH  MUSEUM.  145 

and  before  the  gallant  four  thousand  obeyed  the  word  of 
command  to  steal  across  the  river,  General  Wolfe,  the  young 
officer  of  thirty-three,  who  was  next  day  to  win  death  and 
immortality  in  victory,  crept  along  in  a  boat  from  post  to 
post  to  see  that  all  was  ready  for  the  expedition.  It  was 
a  fine,  silent  evening,  and  as  they  pulled  along,  with 
muffled  oars,  the  General  recited  to  one  of  his  officers  who 
sat  with  him  in  the  stern  of  the  boat  nearly  the  whole  of 
Gray's  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  adding,  as  he  con- 
cluded, "  I  would  prefer  being  the  author  of  that  Poem  to 
the  glory  of  beating  the  French  to-morrow."  Perhaps  no 
finer  compliment  was  ever  paid  by  the  man  of  action  to 
the  man  of  imagination,  and,  sanctified,  as  it  were,  by  the 
dying  lips  of  the  great  English  hero,  the  poem  seems  to 
be  raised  far  above  its  intrinsic  rank  in  literature,  and  to 
demand  our  respect  as  one  of  the  acknowledged  glories  of 
our  race  and  language.  This  beautiful  anecdote  of  Wolfe 
rests  on  the  authority  of  Professor  Eobison,  the  mathe- 
matician, who  was  a  recruit  in  the  engineers  during  the 
attack  upon  Quebec,  and  happened  to  be  present  in  the 
boat  when  the  General  recited  Gray's  poem. 

Poor  Gray,  ever  pursued  by  the  terrors  of  arson,  had  a 
great  fright  in  the  last  days  of  November  in  this  year. 
A  fire  broke  out  in  the  house  of  an  organist  on  the  opposite 
side  of  Southampton  Row,  and  the  poor  householder  was 
burned  to  death ;  the  fire  spread  to  the  house  of  Gray's 
lawyer,  who  fortunately  saved  his  papers.  A  few  nights 
later,  the  poet  was  roused  by  a  conflagration  close  at 
hand  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  "  'Tis  strange,"  he  says,  in 
a  spirit  of  desperation,  "  that  we  all  of  us  here  in  town 
lay  ourselves  down  every  night  on  our  funereal  pile, 
ready  made,  and  compose  ourselves  to  rest,  while  every 
drunken  footman  and  drowsy  old  woman   has  a  candle 

L 


146  GRAY.  [chap. 

ready  to  light  it  before  the  morning."  It  is  rather  diffi- 
cult to  know  what,  even  in  so  pastoral  a  Bloomsbury, 
Gray  did  with  a  sow,  for  which  he  thanks  "Wharton  heartily 
in  April  1760. 

In  the  spring  of  this  year  Gray  first  met  Sterne,  who 
had  just  made  an  overwhelming  success  with  Tristram 
Shandy,  and  who  was  sitting  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 
Gray's  opinion  of  Sterne  was  not  entirely  unfavourable ; 
the  great  humorist  was  polite  to  him,  and  his  works  were 
not  by  nature  so  perplexing  to  Gray  as  those  of  Smollett 
and  Fielding.  The  poet  was  interested  in  Sterne's  newly- 
discovered  emotion,  sensibility,  and  told  Mcholls  after- 
wards that  in  this  sort  of  pathos  Sterne  never  failed ;  for 
his  wit  he  had  less  patience,  and  frankly  disapproved 
his  tittering  insinuations.  He  said  that  there  was  good 
writing  and  good  sense  in  Sterne's  Sermons,  and  spoke  of 
him,  when  he  died  in  1768,  with  some  respect.  A  less 
famous  but  pleasanter  man,  whose  acquaintance  Gray 
began  to  cultivate  about  this  time  was  Benjamin  Stilling- 
fleet,  the  Blue  Stocking. 

In  April  1760  Lady  Cobham  was  at  last  released 
from  her  sufferings.  She  left  the  whole  of  her  pro- 
perty, 30,000/.,  to  Harriet  Speed,  besides  the  house  in 
Hanover  Square,  plate,  jewels,  and  much  blue  and  white 
china.  Gray  tells  Wharton  darkly  that  Miss  Speed 
does  not  know  her  own  mind,  but  that  he  knows  his. 
The  movements  of  this  odd  couple  during  the  summer 
of  1760  are  very  dim  to  us  and  perplexing.  Why  they 
seem  associated  in  some  sort  of  distant  intimacy  from 
April  to  June,  why  in  the  latter  month  they  go  down  to- 
gether to  stay  with  General  Conway  and  Lady  Ailesbury 
at  Park  Place,  near  Henley,  and  why  Lady  Carlisle  is  of 
the  party,  these  are  questions  that  now  can  only  tantalize 


vii.]  NORTON  NICHOLLS,  147 

us.  Gray  himself  confesses  that  all  the  world  expected 
him  to  marry  Miss  Speed,  and  was  astonished  that  Lady 
Cobham  only  left  him  201.  for  a  mourning  ring.  It  seems 
likely  on  the  whole  that  had  he  been  inclined,  to  endow 
Harriet  Speed  with  his  gout,  his  poverty,  his  melancholy, 
and  his  fitful  genius,  she  would  have  accepted  the  respon- 
sibility. When  she  did  marry,  it  was  not  for  money  or 
position.  He  probably,  for  his  part,  did  not  feel  so  pas- 
sionately inclined  to  her  as  to  convince  himself  that  he 
ought  to  think  of  marriage.  He  put  an  air  of  Geminiani 
to  words  for  her,  not  very  successfully,  and  he  wrote  one 
solitary  strain  of  amatory  experience  : — 

With  beauty,  with  pleasure  surrounded,  to  languish, 

To  weep  without  knowing  the  cause  of  my  anguish, 

To  start  from  short  slumbers,  and  wish  for  the  morning — 

To  close  my  dull  eyes  when  I  see  it  returning*, 

Sighs  sudden  and  frequent,  looks  ever  dejected, — 

Words  that  steal  from  my  tongue,  by  no  meaning  connected  f 

Ah !  say,  fellow- swains,  how  these  symptoms  befell  me  ? 

They  smile,  but  reply  not — Sure  Delia  will  tell  me ! 

For  a  month  in  the  summer  of  1760  he  lived  at  Park 
Place  in  the  company  of  Miss  Speed,  Lady  Ailesbury,  and 
Lady  Carlisle,  who  laughed  from  morning  to  night,  and 
would  not  allow  him  to  give  way  to  what  they  called  his 
"  sulkiness."  They  found  him  a  difficult  guest  to  entertain. 
Lady  Ailesbury  told  Walpole  afterwards  that  one  day  when 
they  went  out  for  a  picnic,  Gray  only  opened  his  lips  once, 
and  then  merely  to  say,  "  Yes,  my  Lady,  I  believe  so." 
His  own  account  shows  that  his  nerves  were  in  a  very 
weary  condition.  "  Company  and  cards  at  home,  parties 
by  land  and  water  abroad,  and  what  they  call  doing  some- 
thing, that  is,  racketing  about  from  morning  to  night,  are 
occupations,  I  find,  that  wear  out  my  spirits,  especially  in 


148  GRAY.  [chap. 

a  situation  where  one  might  sit  still,  and  be  alone  with 
pleasure."  Early  in  August  he  escaped  to  the  quietness 
of  Cambridge  in  the  Long  Vacation,  and  after  this  saw 
little  of  Miss  Speed.  Next  January  she  married  a  poor 
man  ten  years  younger  than  herself,  a  Baron  de  la  Peyriere, 
and  went  to  live  at  Viry,  on  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  Here, 
long  after  the  death  of  the  poet,  she  received  a  Mr.  Leman, 
and  gave  into  his  hands  the  lines  which  Gray  had  ad- 
dressed to  her.  So  ended  his  one  feeble  and  shadowy 
romance.  Gray  was  not  destined  to  come  within  the 
genial  glow  of  any  woman's  devotion,  except  his  mother's. 
He  lived  a  life  apart  from  the  absorbing  emotions  of 
humanity,  desirous  to  sympathize  with  but  not  to  partake 
in  the  stationary  affections  and  household  pleasures  of  the 
race.  In  the  annals  of  friendship  he  is  eminent ;  he  did 
not  choose  to  tempt  fortune  by  becoming  a  husband  and  a 
father.  There  are  some  beautiful  words  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  that  come  before  the  mind  as  singularly  appropriate 
to  Gray : — "I  never  yet  cast  a  true  affection  on  a  woman  ; 
but  I  have  loved  my  friend,  as  I  do  virtue,  my  soul,  my 
God." 

In  July  1760  there  were  published  anonymously  Two 
Odes,  addressed  to  Obscurity  and  to  Oblivion,  which  were 
attacks  on  Gray  and  on  Mason  respectively.  It  was  not 
at  first  recognized  that  this  was  a  salute  fired  off  by  that 
group  of  young  satirists  from  Westminster,  of  whom  Cow- 
per,  Lloyd  and  Churchill  are  now  the  best  known.  These 
odes,  indeed,  were  probably  a  joint  production,  but  the 
credit  of  them  was  taken  by  George  Colman  (the  elder) 
and  by  Robert  Lloyd,  gay  young  wits  of  twenty-seven. 
The  mock  odes,  in  which  the  manners  of  Gray  and  Mason 
were  fairly  well  parodied,  attracted  a  good  deal  more 
notice  than  they  were  worth,  and  the  Monthly  Review 


vii]  NORTON  NICHOLLS.  149 

challenged  the  poets  to  reply.  But  Gray  warned  Mason 
not  to  do  so.  Colman  was  a  friend  of  Garrick,  while 
Lloyd  was  an  impassioned  admirer  of  Gray  himself,  and 
there  was  no  venom  in  the  verses.  Lloyd,  indeed,  had 
the  naivete  to  reprint  these  odes  some  years  afterwards, 
in  a  volume  which  bore  his  name,  and  which  contained  a 
Latin  version  of  the  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard. 
Lloyd  was  a  figure  of  no  importance,  a  mere  shadow  cast 
before  by  Churchill. 

In  1760  Gray  became  deeply  interested  in  the  Erse 
Fragments  of  Macpherson,  soon  to  come  before  the  world 
as  the  epic  of  Ossian.  He  corresponded  with  the  young 
Scotchman  of  twenty-two,  whom  he  found  stupid  and  ill- 
educated,  and,  in  Gray's  opinion,  quite  incapable  of  having 
invented  what  he  was  at  this  time  producing.  The 
elaborate  pieces,  the  narratives  of  Croma,  Fingal  and  the 
rest,  were  not  at  this  time  thought  of,  and  it  seems  on  the 
whole  that  the  romantic  fragments  so  much  admired  by  the 
best  judges  of  poetry  were  genuine.  What  is  interesting 
to  us  in  Gray's  connexion  with  Ossian  is  partly  critical  and 
partly  personal.  Critically  it  is  very  important  to  see  that 
the  romantic  tendency  of  his  mind  asserted  itself  at  once 
in  the  presence  of  this  savage  poetry.  He  quotes  certain 
phrases  with  high  approbation.  Ossian  says  of  the 
winds,  "  Their  songs  are  of  other  worlds :"  Gray  ex- 
claims, "  Did  you  never  observe  that  pause,  as  the  gust 
is  recollecting  itself,  and  rising  upon  the  ear  in  a  shrill  and 
plaintive  note  like  the  swell  of  an  iEolian  harp  1  I  do 
assure  you  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  so  like  the  voice 
of  a  spirit."  These  pieces  produced  on  him  just  the  same 
effect  of  exciting  and  stimulating  mystery  that  had  been 
caused  by  his  meeting  with  the  ballads  of  Gil  Morice  and 
Chevy  Chase  in  1757.     He  began  to  feel,  just  as  the  power 


150  GRAY.  [chap. 

of  writing  verse  was  leaving  him  or  seemed  to  be  declining, 
that  the  deepest  chords  of  his  nature  as  a  poet  had  never 
yet  been  struck.  From  this  time  forth  what  little  serious 
poetry  he  wrote  was  distinctly  romantic,  and  his  studies 
were  all  in  the  direction  of  what  was  savage  and  archaic, 
the  poetry  of  the  precursors  of  our  literature  in  England 
and  Scotland,  the  runic  chants  of  the  Scandinavians,  the 
war-songs  of  the  primitive  Gaels,  everything,  in  fact,  which 
for  a  century  past  had  been  looked  upon  as  ungenteel  and 
incorrect  in  literature.  Personally  what  is  interesting  in 
his  introduction  to  Ossian  is  his  sudden  sympathy  with 
men  like  Adam  Smith  and  David  Hume,  for  whom  he 
had  been  trained  in  the  school  of  Warburton  and  Hurd  to 
cultivate  a  fanatic  hatred.  In  the  summer  of  1760  a 
variety  of  civilities  on  the  absorbing  question  of  the  Erse 
Fragments  passed  between  him  and  the  great  historian. 
Hume  had  written  to  a  friend : — "It  gives  me  pleasure  to 
find  that  a  person  of  so  fine  a  taste  as  Mr.  Gray  approves  of 
these  fragments,  as  it  may  convince  us  that  our  fondness 
of  them  is  not  altogether  founded  on  national  preposses- 
sion," and  Gray  was  encouraged  by  this  to  enter  into 
correspondence  of  a  most  friendly  kind  with  the  dangerous 
enemy  of  orthodoxy.  He  never  quite  satisfied  himself 
about  Ossian;  his  last  word  on  that  subject  is: — "For 
me,  I  admire  nothing  but  Fingal,  yet  I  remain  still  in 
doubt  about  the  authenticity  of  these  poems,  though  in- 
clining rather  to  believe  them  genuine  in  spite  of  the  world. 
Whether  they  are  the  inventions  of  antiquity,  or  of  a 
modern  Scotchman,  either  case  to  me  is  alike  unaccount- 
able. Je  m'y  perds."  Modern  scholarship  has  really  not 
progressed  much  nearer  to  a  solution  of  the  puzzle. 

Partly  at  the  instance  of  Mason,  Gray  took  a  consider- 
able interest  in  the  exhibition  of  the  Society  of  Arts  at  the 


vil]  NORTON  NICHOLLS.  151 

Adelphi,  in  1760.  This  was  the  first  collection  of  the 
kind  made  in  London,  and  was  the  nucleus  out  of  which 
the  institution  of  the  Royal  Academy  sprang.  The  genius 
of  this  first  exhibition  was  Paul  Sandby,  a  man  whom 
Mason  thought  he  had  discovered,  and  whom  he  was 
constantly  recommending  to  Gray.  Sandby,  afterwards 
eminent  as  the  first  great  English  water-colour  painter, 
had  at  this  time  hardly  discovered  his  vocation,  though  he 
was  in  his  thirty-fifth  year.  He  was  still  designing  archi- 
tecture and  making  profitless  gibes  and  lampoons  against 
Hogarth.  Gray  and  Mason  appear  to  have  drawn  his 
attention  to  landscape  of  a  romantic  order,  and  in  October, 
1760,  Gray  tells  Wharton  of  a  great  picture  in  oils,  illus- 
trating The  Bard,  with  Edward  I.  in  the  foreground  and 
Snowdon  behind,  which  Sandby  and  Mason  have  concocted 
together,  and  which  is  to  be  the  former's  exhibition  picture 
for  1761.  Sandby  either  repeated  this  subject,  or  took 
another  from  the  same  poem,  for  there  exists  a  picture  of 
his,  without  any  Edward  I.,  in  which  the  Bard  is  repre- 
sented as  plunging  into  the  roaring  tide,  with  his  lyre  in 
his  hand,  and  Snowdon  behind  him. 

During  the  winter  of  1760  and  the  spring  of  1761  Gray 
seems  to  have  given  his  main  attention  to  early  English 
poetry.  He  worked  at  the  British  Museum  with  indefati- 
gable zeal,  copying  with  his  own  hand  the  whole  of  the 
very  rare  1579  edition  of  Gawin  Douglas'  Palace  of  Honour, 
which  he  greatly  admired,  and  composing  those  interesting 
and  learned  studies  on  Metre  and  on  the  Poetry  of  John 
Lydyate  which  Mathias  first  printed  in  1814. 

Warburton  had  placed  in  his  hands  a  rough  sketch 
which  Pope  had  drawn  out  of  a  classification  of  the  British 
Poets.  Pope's  knowledge  did  not  go  very  far,  and  Gray 
seems  to  have  first  formed  the  notion  of  himself  writing  a 


152  GRAY.  [chap. 

History  of  English  Poetry  while  correcting  his  predeces- 
sor's errors.  The  scheme  of  his  history  is  one  which  will 
probably  be  followed  by  the  historian  of  our  poetry,  when 
such  a  man  arises;  Gray  proposed  to  open  by  a  full 
examination  of  the  Provencal  school,  in  which  he  saw 
the  germ  of  all  the  modern  poetry  of  Western  Europe  ; 
from  Provence  to  France  and  Italy,  and  thence  to  England 
the  transition  was  to  be  easy ;  and  it  was  only  after  bring- 
ing up  the  reader  to  the  mature  style  of  Gower  and  Chaucer, 
that  a  return  was  to  be  made  to  the  native,  that  is  the 
Anglo-Saxon  elements  of  our  literature.  Gray  made  a 
variety  of  purchases  for  use  in  this  projected  compila- 
tion, and  according  to  his  MS.  account-book  he  had 
some  "finds"  which  are  enough  to  make  the  modern 
bibliomaniac  mad  with  envy.  He  gave  sixpence  each  for 
the  1587  edition  of  Golding's  Ovid  and  the  1607  edition 
of  Phaer's  ^Eneid,  while  the  1550  edition  of  John 
Heywood's  Fables  seems  to  have  been  thrown  in  for 
nothing,  to  make  up  the  parcel.  Needless  to  say  that 
after  consuming  months  and  years  in  preparing  mate- 
rials for  his  great  work,  Gray  never  completed  or  even 
began  it,  and  in  April,  1770,  learning  from  Hurd  that 
Thomas  Warton  was  about  to  essay  the  same  labour,  he 
placed  all  his  notes  and  memoranda  in  Warton's  hands. 
The  result,  which  Gray  never  lived  to  see,  was  creditable 
and  valuable,  and  even  now  is  not  entirely  antiquated ;  it 
was  very  different,  however,  from  what  the  world  would 
have  had  every  right  to  expect  from  Gray's  learning,  taste 
and  method. 

Two  short  poems  composed  in  the  course  of  1761  next 
demand  our  attention.  The  first  is  a  sketch  of  Gray's 
own  character,  which  was  found  in  one  of  his  note- 
books : — 


vil]  NORTON  NICHOLLS.  153 

Too  poor  for  a  bribe,  and  too  proud  to  importune, 

He  had  not  the  method  of  making  a  fortune ; 

Could  love,  and  could  hate,  so  was  thought  somewhat  odd ; 

No  very  great  wit,  he  believed  in  a  God ; 

A  post  or  a  pension  he  did  not  desire, 

But  left  church  and  state  to  Charles  Townshend  and  Squire. 


It  has  been  commonly  supposed  that  these  lines  suggested 
to  Goldsmith  his  character  of  Burke  in  Retaliation. 
Charles  Townshend  is  the  famous  statesman,  surnamed 
the  Weathercock ;  the  Eev.  Samuel  Squire  was  much  more 
obscure,  an  intriguing  fellow  of  a  Cambridge  college  who 
had  just  contrived  to  wriggle  into  the  bishopric  of  St. 
David's.  Warburton  said  that  Squire  "made  religion 
his  trade."  At  the  storming  of  Belleisle,  June,  13,  1761, 
Sir  William  Williams,  a  young  soldier  with  whom  Gray 
was  slightly  aquainted,  was  killed,  and  the  Montagus,  who 
proposed  to  erect  a  monument  to  him,  applied  to  Gray  for 
an  epitaph.  After  considerable  difficulty,  in  August  of 
that  year,  Gray  contrived  to  squeeze  out  three  of  his  stately 
quatrains.  Walpole  describes  Williams  as  "  a  gallant  and 
ambitious  young  man,  who  had  devoted  himself  to  war 
and  politics,"  and  to  whom  Frederic  Montagu  was  warmly 
attached.  Gray,  however,  expresses  no  strong  personal 
feeling,  and  did  not  indeed  know  much  of  the  subject  of 
his  elegy.  It  is  curious  that  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Brown,  dated 
Oct.  23,  1760,  Gray  mentions  that  Sir  W.  Williams  is 
starting  on  the  expedition  that  proved  fatal  to  him,  and 
predicts  that  he  "  may  lay  his  fine  Yandyck  head  in  the 
dust." 

For  two  years  Gray  had  kept  his  rooms  at  Cambridge 
locked  up,  except  during  the  Long  Vacation,  but  in  the 
early  spring  of  1761,  he  began  to  think  of  returning  to 
what  was  really  home  for  him.     He  ran  down  for  a  few 


154  GRAY.  [chap. 

days  in  January,  but  found  Cambridge  too  cold,  and  told 
Dr.  Brown  not  to  expect  him  till  the  codlin  hedge  at 
Pembroke  was  out  in  blossom.  Business,  however,  delayed 
him,  against  his  will,  until  June,  when  he  settled  in 
college.  In  September  he  came  up  again  to  London  to  be 
present  at  the  Coronation  of  George  III.,  on  which  occa- 
sion he  was  accommodated  with  a  place  in  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain's box.  "The  Bishop  of  Rochester  would  have 
dropped  the  crown  if  it  had  not  been  pinned  to  the  cushion, 
and  the  king  was  often  obliged  to  call  out,  and  set  matters 
right;  but  the  sword  of  state  had  been  entirely  forgot,  so 
Lord  Huntingdon  was  forced  to  carry  the  lord  mayor's 
great  two-handed  sword  instead  of  it.  This  made  it  later 
than  ordinary  before  they  got  under  their  canopies  and  set 
forward.  I  should  have  told  you  that  the  old  Bishop  of 
Lincoln,  with  his  stick,  went  doddling  by  the  side  of  the 
Queen,  and  the  Bishop  of  Chester  had  the  pleasure  of 
bearing  the  gold  paten.  "When  they  were  gone,  we  went 
down  to  dinner,  for  there  were  three  rooms  below,  where 
the  Duke  of  Devonshire  was  so  good  as  to  feed  us  with 
great  cold  sirloins  of  beef,  legs  of  mutton,  fillets  of  veal,  and 
other  substantial  viands  and  liquors,  which  we  devoured  all 
higgledy-piggledy,  like  porters ;  after  which  every  one 
scrambled  up  again,  and  seated  themselves." 

In  the  winter  of  1761  Gray  was  curiously  excited  by 
the  arrival  at  Cambridge  of  Mr.  Delaval,  a  former  fellow 
of  the  college,  bringing  with  him  a  set  of  musical  glasses. 
To  Mason,  Gray  writes  on  the  8th  of  December  : — 

Of  all  loves  come  to  Cambridge  out  of  hand,  for  here  is  Mr. 
Delaval  and  a  charming  set  of  glasses  that  sing  like  nightin- 
gales ;  and  we  have  concerts  every  other  night,  and  shall  stay 
here  this  month  or  two ;  and  a  vast  deal  of  good  company,  and 
a  whale  in  pickle  just  come  from  Ipswich  ;  and  the  man  will 


vii.]  NORTON  NICHOLLS.  155 

not  die,  and  Mr.  Wood  is  gone  to  Chatsworth ;  and  there  is  no- 
body but  you  and  Tom  and  the  curled  dog,  and  do  not  talk  of 
the  charge,  for  we  will  make  a  subscription ;  besides,  we  know 
you  always  come  when  you  have  a  mind. 


As  early  as  1760,  probably  during  one  of  his  flying  visits 
to  Cambridge,  Gray  had  a  young  fellow  introduced  to  him 
of  whom  he  seems  at  that  time  to  have  taken  no  notice, 
but  who  was  to  become  the  most  intimate  and  valued  of 
his  friends.  No  person  has  left  so  clear  and  circum- 
stantial an  account  of  the  appearance,  conduct,  and  sayings 
of  Gray  as  the  Eev.  Norton  Nicholls  of  Blundeston,  in 
1760  an  undergraduate  at  Trinity  Hall,  and  between 
eighteen  and  nineteen  years  of  age.  Nicholls  afterwards 
told  Mathias  that  the  lightning  brightness  of  Gray's  eye 
was  what  struck  him  most  in  his  first  impression,  and  he 
used  the  phrase  "folgorante  sguardo"  to  express  what 
he  meant.  A  little  later  than  this,  at  a  social  gathering 
in  the  rooms  of  a  Mr.  Lobbs,  at  Peterhouse,  Nicholls 
formed  one  of  a  party  who  collected  round  Gray's  chair 
and  listened  to  his  bright  conversation.  The  young  man 
was  too  modest  to  join  in  the  talk,  until,  in  reply  to  some- 
thing that  had  been  said  on  the  use  of  bold  metaphors  in 
poetry,  Gray  quoted  Milton's  "  The  sun  to  me  is  dark,  and 
silent  as  the  moon  ; "  upon  this  Nicholls  ventured  to  ask 
whetherthis  might  not  possibly  be  imitatedfrom  Dante,  "Mi 
ripingeva  la  dove  il  sol  tace."  Gray  turned  quickly  round 
and  said,  "Sir,  do  you  read  Dante V  and  immediately 
entered  into  conversation  with  him.  He  found  Nicholls 
an  intelligent  and  sympathetic  student  of  literature ;  he 
chiefly  addressed  him  through  the  remainder  of  the  evening; 
and  when  they  came  to  part,  he  pressed  him  to  visit  him 
in  his  own  rooms  at  Pembroke. 


156  GRAY.  [chap. 

Gray  had  never  forgotten  the  Italian  which  he  had 
learned  in  his  youth,  and  he  was  deeply  read  in  Dante, 
Petrarch,  Ariosto,  and  Tasso,  while  disdaining  those 
popular  poets  of  the  eighteenth  century  who  at  that 
time  enjoyed  more  consideration  in  their  native  land 
than  the  great  classics  of  the  country.  One  of  his 
proofs  of  favour  to  his  young  friend  Mcholls  was  to  lend 
him  his  marked  and  annotated  copy  of  Petrarch  ;  and  he 
was  pleased  when  Nicholls  was  the  first  to  trace  in  the 
Purgatorio  the  lines  which  suggested  a  phrase  in  the  Elegy 
in  a  Country  Churchyard.  It  was  doubtless  with  a  side- 
glance  at  his  own  starved  condition  of  genius  that  he  told 
Nicholls  that  he  thought  it  "  an  advantage  to  Dante  to 
have  been  produced  in  a  rude  age  of  strong  and  uncon- 
trolled passions,  when  the  Muse  was  not  checked  by  refine- 
ment and  the  fear  of  criticism."  For  the  next  three  years 
we  must  consider  Gray  as  constantly  cheered  by  the  sym- 
pathy and  enthusiasm  of  young  Nicholls,  though  it  is  not 
until  1764  that  we  come  upon  the  first  of  the  invaluable 
letters  which  the  latter  received  from  his  great  friend. 

Nothing  could  be  more  humdrum  than  Gray's  existence 
about  this  time.  There  is  no  sign  of  literary  life  in  him, 
and  the  whole  year  1762  seems  only  broken  by  a  journey 
northwards  in  the  summer.  Towards  the  end  of  June,  he 
went  to  stay  at  York  for  a  fortnight  with  Mason,  whose 
"  insatiable  avarice,"  as  Gray  calls  it  in  writing  to  him, 
had  been  lulled  for  a  little  while  by  the  office  of  residen- 
tiary of  York  Cathedral.  Mason  was  now  grown  lazy  and 
gross,  sitting  "  like  a  Japanese  divinity,  with  his  hands 
folded  on  his  fat  belly,"  and  so  prosperous  that  Gray 
recommends  him  to  "  shut  his  insatiable  repining  mouth." 
There  was  a  fund  of  good-humour  about  Mason,  and  under 
all  the  satire  of  his  friend  he  does  not  seem  to  have  shown 


vir.]  NORTON  NICHOLLS.  157 

the  least  irritation.  From  York,  Gray  went  on  to  Durham, 
to  stay  with  Wharton  at  Old  Park,  where  he  was  extremely 
happy ;  "we  take  in  no  newspaper  or  magazine,  but  the 
cream  and  butter  are  beyond  compare."  He  made  a  long 
stay,  and  rather  late  in  the  autumn  set  out  for  a  tour  in 
Yorkshire  by  himself.  Through  driving  rain  he  saw  what 
he  could  of  Richmond  and  of  Ripon,  but  was  fortunate  enough 
to  secure  some  gleams  of  sunshine  for  an  examination  of 
Fountains  Abbey.  At  Sheffield,  then  pastoral  and  pretty 
still,  he  admired  the  charming  situation  of  the  town,  and 
so  came  at  last  to  Chatsworth  and  Hardwicke,  at  which 
latter  place  "  one  would  think  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  was 
but  just  walked  down  into  the  park  with  her  guard  for 
half  an  hour."  After  passing  through  Chesterfield  and 
Mansfield,  Gray  descended  the  Trent,  spent  two  or  three 
days  at  Nottingham,  and  came  up  to  London  by  the  coach. 
He  arrived  to  find  letters  awaiting  him,  and  a  great 
pother.  Dr.  Shallet  Turner  of  Peterhouse,  Professor  of 
Modern  History  and  Modern  Languages  at  Cambridge,  had 
been  dead  a  fortnight,  and  Gray's  friends  were  very  anxious 
to  secure  the  vacant  post  for  him.  The  chair  had  been 
founded  by  George  I.  in  1724,  and  the  stipend  was  400/. 
It  was  not  expected  that  any  lectures  should  be  given;  as 
a  matter  of  fact  not  one  lecture  was  delivered  until  after 
Gray's  death.  Shallet  Turner  had  succeeded  Samuel 
Harris,  the  first  professor,  in  1735,  and  had  held  the  sine- 
cure for  twenty-seven  years.  Gray's  friends  encouraged 
him  to  think  that  Lord  Bute  would  look  favourably  on  his 
claims,  partly  because  of  his  fame  as  a  poet,  and  partly 
because  Bute's  creature,  Sir  Henry  Erskine,  was  a  great 
friend  of  Gray's ;  but  Sir  Francis  Blake  Delaval  had  in 
the  meantime  secured  the  interest  of  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle for  his  own  kinsman.      Early  in  November  it  was 


158  GRAY.  [chap. 

generally  reported  that  Delaval  had  been  appointed,  but  a 
month  later  the  post  was  actually  given  to  Lawrence 
Brockett  of  Trinity,  who  held  it  until  1768,  when  he  was 
succeeded  by  Gray.  This  is  the  only  occasion  upon  which 
the  poet,  in  an  age  when  the  most  greedy  and  open  demands 
for  promotion  were  considered  in  no  way  dishonourable, 
persuaded  his  haughty  and  independent  spirit  to  ask  for  any- 
thing ;  in  this  one  case  he  gave  way  to  the  importunities  of  a 
crowd  of  friends,  who  declared  that  he  had  but  to  put  out 
his  hand  and  take  the  fruit  that  was  ready  to  drop  into  it. 
In  the  spring  of  1763  Gray  was  recalled  to  the  pursuit 
of  literature  by  the  chance  that  a  friend  of  his,  a  Mr. 
Howe,  of  Pembroke,  while  travelling  in  Italy,  met  the 
celebrated  critic  and  commentator  Count  Francesco  Alga- 
rotti,  to  whom  he  presented  Gray's  poems.  The  Count 
read  them  with  rapturous  admiration,  and  passed  them  on 
to  the  young  poet  Agostino  Paradisi,  with  a  recommen- 
dation that  he  should  translate  them  into  Italian.  The 
reputation  of  Algarotti  was  then  a  European  one.  and  Gray 
was  very  much  nattered  at  the  graceful  and  ardent  com- 
pliments of  so  famous  a  connoisseur.  "  I  was  not  born  so 
far  from  the  sun,"  he  says,  in  a  letter  dated  February  17th, 
1763,  "as  to  be  ignorant  of  Count  Algarotti's  name  and 
reputation ;  nor  am  I  so  far  advanced  in  years,  or  in  philo- 
sophy, as  not  to  feel  the  warmth  of  his  approbation.  The 
odes  in  question,  as  their  motto  shows,  were  meant  to  be 
vocal  to  the  intelligent  alone.  How  few  they  were  in  my 
own  country,  Mr.  Howe  can  testify ;  and  yet  my  ambition 
was  terminated  by  that  small  circle.  I  have  good  reason  to 
be  proud,  if  my  voice  has  reached  the  ear  and  apprehension 
of  a  stranger,  distinguished  as  one  of  the  best  judges  in 
Europe."  Algarotti  replied  that  England,  which  had 
already  enjoyed  a  Homer,  an  Archimedes,  a  Demosthenes, 


vii.]  NORTON  NICHOLLS.  159 

now  possessed  a  Pindar  also,  and  enclosed  "  observations, 
that  is  panegyrics "  on  the  Odes.  For  some  months  the 
correspondence  of  Count  Algarotti  enlivened  "  the  nothing- 
ness" of  Gray's  history  at  Cambridge,  "a  place,"  he  says, 
"  where  no  events  grow,  though  we  preserve  those  of  former 
days  by  way  of  hortus  siccus  in  our  libraries."  In  Novem- 
ber 1763  the  Count  announced  his  intention  of  visiting 
England,  where  he  proposed  to  publish  a  magnificent  edition 
of  his  own  works ;  Gray  seems  to  have  anticipated  pleasure 
from  his  company,  but  Algarotti  never  came,  and  soon  died 
rather  unexpectedly,  in  Italy,  on  the  24th  of  May,  1764, 
at  the  age  of  fifty-two. 

We  possess  some  of  the  notes  which  Gray  took  of 
the  habits  of  flowers  and  birds,  thus  anticipating 
the  charming  observations  of  Gilbert  White.  At  Cam- 
bridge, in  1763,  crocus  and  hepatica  were  blossoming 
through  the  snow  in  the  college  garden  on  the  12th  of 
February ;  nine  days  later  brought  the  first  white  butter- 
fly ;  on  the  5th  of  March  Gray  heard  the  thrush  sing,  and 
on  the  8th  the  skylark.  The  same  warm  day  which 
brought  the  lark  opened  the  blossom-buds  of  the  apricots, 
and  the  almond-trees  for  once  found  themselves  out-run 
in  the  race  of  spring.  These  notes  show  the  quickness  of 
Gray's  eye,  and  his  quiet  ways.  It  is  only  the  silent, 
clear-sighted  man  that  knows  on  what  day  the  first  fall  of 
lady-birds  is  seen,  or  observes  the  redstart  sitting  on  her  eggs. 
Gray's  notes  for  the  spring  of  1763  read  like  fragments  of 
a  beautiful  poem,  and  are  scarcely  less  articulate  than  that 
little  trill  of  improvised  song  which  Norton  Nicholls  has 
preserved : — 

There  pipes  the  wood-lark,  and  the  song-thrush  there 
Scatters  his  loose  notes  in  the  waste  of  air, 

a  couplet  which  Gray  made  one  spring  morning,  as  Nicholls 


160  GRAY.  [chap. 

and  he  were  walking  in  the  fields  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Cambridge. 

To  this  period  should  be  attributed  the  one  section  of 
Gray's  poems  which  it  is  impossible  to  date  with  exactness, 
namely  the  romantic  lyrics  paraphrased,  in  short  measures, 
from  Icelandic  and  Gaelic  sources.1  When  these  pieces  were 
published,  in  1768,  Gray  prefixed  to  them  an  "  advertise- 
ment," which  was  not  reprinted.  In  this  he  connected  them 
with  his  projected  History  of  English  Poetry ;  "in  the  intro- 
duction "  to  that  work,  "  he  meant  to  have  produced  some 
specimens  of  the  style  that  reigned  in  ancient  times  among 
the  neighbouring  nations,  or  those  who  had  subdued  the 
greater  part  of  this  island,  and  were  only  progenitors  :  the 
following  three  imitations  made  a  part  of  them."  The 
three  imitations  are  The  Fatal  Sisters,  The  Descent  of  Odin, 
and  The  Triumphs  of  Owen.  To  these  must  be  added  the 
smaller  fragments,  The  Death  of  Hoel,  Caradoc,  and 
Conon,  discovered  among  Gray's  papers,  and  first  printed 
by  Mason.  These,  then,  form  a  division  of  Gray's  poetical 
work  not  inconsiderable  in  extent,  remarkably  homo- 
geneous in  style  and  substance,  and  entirely  distinct  from 
anything  else  which  he  wrote.  In  these  paraphrases  of 
archaic  chants  he  appears  as  a  purely  romantic  poet,  and 
heralds  the  approach  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  the  whole 
revival  of  northern  romance.  The  Norse  pieces  are  perhaps 
more  interesting  than  the  Celtic  ;  they  are  longer,  and  to 
modern  scholarship  seem  more  authentic,  at  all  events 
more  in  the  general  current  of  literature.  Moreover  they 
were  translated  direct  from  the  Icelandic,  whereas  there  is 
no  absolute  proof  that  Gray  was  a  Welsh  scholar.  It  may 
well  inspire  us  with  admiration  of  the  poet's  intellectual 

1  I  notice  that  the  The  Fatal  Sisters  and  The  Descent  of  Odin 
bear  the  date  17G1  in  the  Pembroke  MSS. 


vii.]  NORTON  NICHOLLS.  161 

energy  to  find  that  he  had  mastered  a  language  which  was 
hardly  known,  at  that  time,  by  any  one  in  Europe,  except 
a  few  learned  Icelanders,  whose  native  tongue  made  it 
easy  for  them  to  understand  Norroena.  Gray  must  have 
puzzled  it  out  for  himself,  probably  with  the  help  of  the 
Index  Ling uce  Scytho-Scandicae  of  Verelius.  At  that 
time  what  he  rightly  calls  the  Norse  Tongue  was  looked 
upon  as  a  sort  of  mystery  ;  it  was  called  "  Runick,"  and  its 
roots  were  supposed  to  be  derived  from  the  Hebrew.  The 
Fatal  Sisters  is  a  lay  of  the  eleventh  century,  the  text  of 
which  Gray  found  in  one  of  the  compilations  of  Torfceus 
(Thormod  Torveson),  a  great  collector  of  ancient  Icelandic 
vellums  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  is  a 
monologue,  sung  by  one  of  the  Valkyriur  or  Choosers  of 
the  Slain  to  her  three  sisters ;  the  measure  is  one  of  great 
force  and  fire,  an  alternate  rhyming  of  seven-syllable 
lines,  of  which  this  is  a  specimen  : — 


J 


Now  the  storm  begins  to  lower, 
(Haste,  the  loom  of  Hell  prepare !) 

Iron-sleet  of  arrowy  shower 
Hurtles  in  the  darkened  air. 

Ere  the  ruddy  sun  be  set 

Pikes  must  shiver,  javelins  sing, 
Blade  with  clattering  buckler  meet, 

Hauberk  crash,  and  helmet  ring. 

Sisters,  hence  with  spurs  of  speed ; 

Each  her  thundering  faulchion  wield 
Each  bestride  her  sable  steed, 

Hurry,  hurry  to  the  field  ! 


The  Descent  of  Odin  is  a  finer  poem,  better  paraphrased. 
Gray  found  the  original  in  a  book  by  Bartolinus,  one  of  the 

M 


162  GRAY.  [chap. 

five  great  physicians  of  that  name  who  flourished  in  Den- 
mark during  the  seventeenth  century.  The  poem  itself  is 
the  Vegtamskvida,  one  of  the  most  powerful  and  mysterious 
of  those  ancient  lays  which  form  the  earliest  collection 
we  possess  of  Scandinavian  poetry.  It  is  probable  that 
Gray  never  saw  the  tolerably  complete  but  very  inaccurate 
edition  of  Scemundar  Edda  which  existed  in  his  time,  nor 
knew  the  wonderful  history  of  this  collection,  which  was 
discovered  in  Iceland,  in  1643,  by  Brynjolfr  Sveinnson, 
Bishop  of  Skalaholt.  The  text  which  Gray  found  in 
Bartolinus,  however,  was  sufficiently  true  to  enable  him 
to  make  a  better  translation  of  the  Vegtamskvida  than 
any  which  has  been  attempted  since,  and  to  make  us 
deeply  regret  that  he  did  not  "imitate"  more  of  these 
noble  Eddaic  chants.  He  even  attempts  a  philological 
ingenuity,  for,  finding  that  Odin,  to  conceal  his  true  nature 
from  the  Volva,  calls  himself  Yegtam,  Gray  translates  this 
strange  word  "  traveller,"  evidently  tracing  it  to  veg,  a 
way.  He  omits  the  first  stave,  which  recounts  how  the 
JEsir  sat  in  council  to  deliberate  on  the  dreams  of  Balder, 
and  he  also  omits  four  spurious  stanzas,  in  this  showing  a 
critical  tact  little  short  of  miraculous,  considering  the  con- 
dition of  scholarship  at  that  time.  The  version  itself  is  as 
poetical  as  it  is  exact : — 

Right  against  the  eastern  gate, 
By  the  moss-grown  pile  he  sate ; 
Where  long  of  yore  to  sleep  was  laid 
The  dust  of  the  prophetic  Maid. 
Facing  to  the  northern  clime, 
Thrice  he  traced  the  runic  rhyme ; 
Thrice  pronounced,  in  accents  dread, 
The  thrilling  verse  that  wakes  the  Dead ; 
Till  from  out  the  hollow  ground 
Slowly  breathed  a  sullen  sound. 


vir.]  NORTON  NICHOLLS.  163 

or, 

Mantling  in  the  goblet  see 
The  pure  beverage  of  the  bee, 
O'er  it  hangs  the  shield  of  gold ; 
'Tis  the  drink  of  Balder  bold. 
Balder' s  head  to  death  is  given. 
Pain  can  reach  the  sons  of  Heaven ! 
Unwilling  I  my  lips  unclose, 
Leave  me,  leave  me,  to  repose, 

must  be  compared  with  the  original  to  show  how 
thoroughly  the  terse  and  rapid  evolution  of  the  strange 
old  lay  has  been  preserved,  though  the  concise  expression 
has  throughout  been  modernized  and  rendered  intelli- 
gible. 

In  these  short  pieces  we  see  the  beginning  of  that 
return  to  old  Norse  themes  which  has  been  carried  so  far 
and  so  brilliantly  by  later  poets.  It  is  a  very  curious 
thing  that  Gray  in  this  anticipated,  not  merely  his  own 
countrymen,  but  the  Scandinavians  themselves.  The 
first  poems  in  which  a  Danish  poet  showed  any  intelligent 
appreciation  of  his  national  mythology  and  history,  were 
the  Rolf  Krdke  and  Balder's  Bod  of  Johannes  Ewald, 
published  respectively  in  1770  and  1773.  Gray  there- 
fore takes  the  precedence  not  only  of  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
Mr.  Morris  and  other  British  poets,  but  even  of  the 
countless  Danish,  Swedish,  and  German  writers  who  for 
a  century  past  have  celebrated  the  adventures  of  the 
archaic  heroes  of  their  race. 

In  a  century  which  was  inclined  to  begin  the  history 
of  English  poetry  with  the  Life  of  Cowley,  and  which 
distrusted  all  that  was  ancient,  as  being  certainly  rude 
and  probably  worthless,  Gray  held  the  opinion,  which 
he  expresses  in  a  letter  of  the  17th  of  February,  1763, 
"  that  without  any  respect  of  climates,  imagination  reigns 


164  GRAY.  [ch.  vn. 

in  all  nascent  societies  of  men,  where  the  necessaries  of 
life  force  every  one  to  think  and  act  much  for  himself." 
This  critical  temper  attracted  him  to  the  Edda,  made  him 
indulgent  to  Ossian,  and  led  him  to  see  more  poetry  in  the 
ancient  songs  of  Wales  than  most  non-Celtic  readers  can 
discover  there.  In  1764  Evans  published  his  Specimens 
of  Welsh  Poetry,  and  in  that  bulky  quarto  Gray  met  with 
a  Latin  prose  translation  of  the  chant  written  about  1158 
by  Gwalchmai,  in  praise  of  his  master  Owen  Gwynedd. 
The  same  Evans  gave  a  variety  of  extracts  from  the 
Welsh  epic,  the  Gododt7i,  and  three  of  these  fragments 
Gray  turned  into  English  rhyme.  One  has  something  of 
the  concision  of  an  epigram  from  the  Greek  mythology  : — 

Have  ye  seen  the  tusky  boar, 
Or  the  bull,  with  sullen  roar, 
On  surrounding  foes  advance  ? 
So  Caradoc  bore  his  lanee. 

The  others  are  not  nearly  equal  in  poetical  merit  to  the 
Scandinavian  paraphrases.  Gray  does  not  seem  to  have 
shown  these  romances  to  his  friends,  with  the  same  readi- 
ness that  he  displayed  on  other  occasions.  From  critics 
like  Hurd  and  Warburton  he  could  expect  no  approval  of 
themes  taken  from  an  antique  civilization.  Walpole,  who 
did  not  see  these  poems  till  they  were  printed,  asks  : — 
"  Who  can  care  through  what  horrors  a  Runic  savage 
arrived  at  all  the  joys  and  glories  they  could  conceive, — 
the  supreme  felicity  of  boozing  ale  out  of  the  skull  of  an 
enemy  in  Odin's  Hall  1 "  This  is  quite  a  characteristic 
expression  of  that  wonderful  eighteenth  century  through 
which  poor  Gray  wandered  in  a  life-long  exile.  The 
author  of  the  Vegtamskmda  a  "  Runic  savage "  !  IS'o 
wonder  Gray  kept  his  "  Imitations "  safely  out  of  the 
sight  of  such  critics. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

LIFE   AT   CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH   TRAVELS. 

The  seven  remaining  years  of  Gray's  life  were  even  less 
eventful  than  those  which  we  have  already  examined.  In 
November  1763  he  began  to  find  that  a  complaint,  which 
had  long  troubled  him,  the  result  of  failing  constitution, 
had  become  almost  constant.  For  eight  or  nine  months 
he  was  an  acute  sufferer,  until  in  July  1764  he  con- 
sented to  undergo  the  operation  without  which  he  could 
not  have  continued  to  live.  Dr.  Wharton  volunteered  to 
come  up  from  Durham,  and,  if  not  to  perform  the  act,  to 
support  his  friend  in  "the  perilous  hour."  But  Gray 
preferred  that  the  Cambridge  surgeon  should  attend  him, 
and  the  operation  was  not  only  performed  success- 
fully, but  the  poet  was  able  to  sustain  the  much-dreaded 
suffering  with  fortitude.  As  he  was  beginning  to  get 
about  again,  the  gout  came  in  one  foot,  "but  so  tame  you 
might  have  stroked  it,  such  a  minikin  you  might  have 
played  with  it;  in  three  or  four  days  it  had  disappeared." 
This  gout  which  troubled  him  so  constantly,  and  was 
fatal  to  him  at  last,  was  hereditary,  and  not  caused  by  any 
excess  in  eating  or  drinking ;  Gray  was,  in  fact,  singularly 
abstemious,  and  it  was  one  of  the  accusations  of  his 
enemies  that  he  affected  to  be  so  dainty  that  he  could 
touch  nothing  less  delicate  than  apricot  marmalade. 


166  GRAY.  [chap. 

While  Gray  was  lying  ill,  Lord  Chancellor  Hardwicke 
died,  at  the  age  of  seventy-four,  on  the  16th  of  May 
1764.  The  office  of  Seneschal  of  the  University  was  thus 
vacated,  and  there  ensued  a  very  violent  contest,  the 
result  of  which  was  that  Philip  Hardwicke  succeeded  to 
his  father's  honours  by  a  majority  of  one,  and  the  other 
candidate,  the  notorious  John,  Earl  of  Sandwich,  though 
supported  by  the  aged  Dr.  Roger  Long  and  other  clerical 
magnates,  was  rejected.  Gray,  to  whom  the  tarnished 
reputation  of  Lord  Sandwich  was  in  the  highest  degree 
abhorrent,  swelled  the  storm  of  electioneering  by  a  lam- 
poon, The  Candidate,  beginning  : — 

When  sly  Jemmy  Twitcher  had  smugged  up  his  face, 
With  a  lick  of  court  white- wash,  and  pious  grimace, 
A-wooing  he  went,  where  three  sisters  of  old 
In  harmless  society  guttle  and  scold. 

Lord  Sandwich  found  that  this  squib  was  not  without 
its  instant  and  practical  effect,  and  he  attempted  to  win 
so  dangerous  an  opponent  to  his  side.  What  means  he 
adopted  cannot  be  conjectured,  but  they  were  unsuccessful. 
Lord  Sandwich  said  to  Cradock,  "  I  have  my  private 
reasons  for  knowing  Gray's  absolute  inveteracy."  The 
Candidate  found  its  way  into  print  long  after  Gray's 
death,  but  only  in  a  fragmentary  form  ;  and  the  same  has 
hitherto  been  true  of  Tophet,  of  which  I  am  able  to  give, 
for  the  first  time,  a  complete  text  from  the  Pembroke 
MSS.  One  of  Gray's  particular  friends,  "  placid  Mr. 
Tyson  of  Bene't  College,"  made  a  drawing  of  the  Rev. 
Henry  Etough,  a  converted  Jew,  a  man  of  slanderous  and 
violent  temper,  who  had  climbed  into  high  preferment  in 
the  Church  of  England.  Underneath  this  very  rude  and 
hideous  caricature  Gray  wrote  these  lines  : — 


vni.]  LIFE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.  167 

Thus  Tophet  look'd :  so  grinn'd  the  brawling  fiend, 
Whilst  frighted  prelates  bow'd  and  call'd  him  friend ; 
I  saw  them  bow,  and,  while  they  wish'd  him  dead, 
With  servile  simper  nod  the  mitred  head. 
Our  mother-church,  with  half-averted  sight, 
Blush'd  as  she  bless'd  her  griesly  proselyte ; 
Hosannahs  rang  through  hell's  tremendous  borders, 
And  Satan's  self  had  thoughts  of  taking  orders. 

These  two  pieces,  however,  are  very  far  from  being  the 
only  effusions  of  the  kind  which  Gray  wrote.  Mason 
appears  to  have  made  a  collection  of  Gray's  Cambridge 
squibs,  which  he  did  not  venture  to  print.  A  Satire  upon 
the  Heads,  or  Never  a  barrel  the  better  Herring,  a  comic 
piece  in  which  Gray  attacked  the  prominent  heads  of 
houses,  was  printed  by  me  in  1884  from  a  MS.  in  pos- 
session of  the  late  Lord  Houghton.  These  squibs 
are  said  to  have  been  widely  circulated  in  Cam- 
bridge, so  widely  as  to  frighten  the  timid  poet,  and  to 
have  been  retained  as  part  of  the  tradition  of  Pembroke 
common-room  until  long  after  Gray's  death.  I  am  told 
that  Mason's  set  of  copies  of  these  poems,  of  which  I  have 
seen  a  list,  turned  up,  during  the  present  century,  in  the 
library  of  a  cathedral  in  the  north  of  England.  This  may 
give  some  clue  to  their  ultimate  discovery ;  they  might 
prove  to  be  coarse  and  slight,  they  could  not  fail  to  be 
biographically  interesting. 

In  October  1764  Gray  set  out  upon  what  he  called 
X  his  "  Lilliputian  travels  "  in  the  south  of  England.  He 
went  down  by  Winchester  to  Southampton,  stayed  there 
some  weeks,  and  then  returned  to  London  by  Salisbury, 
Wilton,  Amesbury  and  Stonehenge.  "  I  proceed  to  tell 
you,"  he  says  to  Norton  Nicholls,  "that  my  health  is 
much  improved  by  the  sea  ;  not  that  I  drank  it,  or  bathed 
in  it,  as  the  common  people  do.     No  !     I  only  walked  by 


168  GRAY,  [chap. 

it  and  looked  upon  it."  His  description  of  Netley  Abbey, 
in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Brown,  is  very  delicate  : — "It  stands  in 
a  little  quiet  valley,  which  gradually  rises  behind  the 
ruins  into  a  half -circle  crowned  with  thick  wood.  Before 
it,  on  a  descent,  is  a  thicket  of  oaks,  that  serves  to  veil  it 
from  the  broad  day,  and  from  profane  eyes,  only  leaving  a 
peep  on  both  sides,  where  the  sea  appears  glittering 
through  the  shade,  and  vessels,  wTith  their  white  sails,  glide 
across  and  are  lost  again.  ...  I  should  tell  you  that  the 
ferryman  who  rowed  me,  a  lusty  young  fellow,  told  me 
that  he  would  not,  for  all  the  world,  pass  a  night  at  the 
Abbey,  there  were  such  things  seen  near  it."  Still  more 
picturesque,  indeed  showing  an  eye  for  nature  which 
was  then  without  a  precedent  in  modern  literature,  is 
this  passage  from  a  letter  of  this  time  to  Norton 
Mcholls : — 

I  must  not  close  my  letter  without  giving  you  one  principal 
event  of  my  history ;  which  was,  that  (in  the  course  of  my  late 
tour)  I  set  out  one  morning  before  five  o'clock,  the  moon  shining 
through  a  dark  and  misty  autumnal  air,  and  got  to  the  sea- 
coast  time  enough  to  be  at  the  Sun's  levee.  I  saw  the  clouds 
and  dark  vapours  open  gradually  to  right  and  left,  rolling  over 
one  another  in  great  smoky  wreaths,  and  the  tide  (as  it  flowed 
gently  in  upon  the  sands)  first  whitening,  then  slightly  tinged 
with  gold  and  blue ;  and  all  at  once  a  little  line  of  insufferable 
brightness  that  (before  I  can  write  these  few  words)  was  grown 
to  half  an  orb,  and  now  to  a  whole  one,  too  glorious  to  be  dis- 
tinctly seen.  It  is  very  odd  it  makes  no  figure  on  paper;  yet 
I  shall  remember  it  as  long  as  the  sun,  or  at  least  as  long  as 
I  endure.  I  wonder  whether  anybody  ever  saw  it  before !  I 
hardly  believe  it. 

In  November  Gray  was  laid  up  again  with  illness, 
being  threatened  this  time   with  blindness,  a  calamity 


vin.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  169 

which  passed  off  favourably.  He  celebrated  the  death  of 
Churchill,  which  occurred  at  this  time,  by  writing  what 
he  calls  "The  Temple  of  Tragedy."  We  do  not  know 
what  this  may  have  been,  but  it  would  not  be  inspired  by 
love  of  Churchill,  who,  in  the  course  of  his  brief  rush 
through  literature  in  the  guise  of  a  "  rogue  "  elephant,  had 
annoyed  Gray,  though  he  had  never  tossed  him  or 
trampled  on  him.  Gray  bought  all  the  pamphlet-satires 
of  Churchill  as  they  appeared,  and  enriched  them  with 
annotations.  In  his  collection,  the  Ghost  alone  is  missing, 
perhaps  because  of  the  allusions  it  contained  to  himself. 

On  the  24th  of  December,  1764,  that  Gothic  romance, 
the  Castle  of  Otranto,  was  published  anonymously.  It 
was  almost  universally  attributed  to  Gray,  to  the  surprise 
and  indignation  of  Horace  Walpole,  who  said  of  his  own 
work,  modestly  enough,  that  people  must  be  fools  indeed 
to  think  such  a  trifle  worthy  of  a  genius  like  Gray.  The 
reputation  of  the  poet  as  an  antiquarian  and  a  lover  of 
romantic  antiquity  probably  led  to  this  mistake.  At 
Cambridge  another  error  prevailed,  as  Gray  announces  to 
Walpole  within  a  week  of  the  publication  of  the  book. 
11  It  engages  our  attention  here,  makes  some  of  us  cry  a 
little,  and  all  in  general  afraid  to  go  to  bed  o'  nights. 
We  take  it  for  a  translation,  and  should  believe  it  to  be  a 
true  story  if  it  were  not  for  St.  Nicholas."  This  novel, 
poor  as  it  is,  was  a  not  inconsiderable  link  in  the  chain 
of  romantic  revival  started  by  Gray. 

We  have  little  record  of  the  poet's  life  during  the  early 
months  of  1765.  In  June  he  was  laid  up  with  gout  at 
York,  while  paying  a  visit  to  Mason,  and  in  July  went  on 
to  drink  the  waters  and  walk  by  the  sea  at  Hartlepool. 
From  this  place  he  sent  to  Mason  some  excellent  stanzas 
which  have  never  found  their  way  into  his  works ;  they 


170  GRAY.  [chap. 

are  supposed  to  be  indited  by  William  Shakespeare  in 
person,  and  to  be  a  complaint  of  his  sufferings  at  the  hands 
of  his  commentators.  The  poem  is  in  the  metre  of  the 
Elegy,  and  is  a  very  grave  specimen  of  the  mock-heroic 
style  : — 

Better  to  bottom  tarts  and  cheesecakes  nice, 
Better  the  roast  meat  from  the  fire  to  save, 

Better  be  twisted  into  caps  for  spice, 

Than  thus  be  patched  and  cobbled  in  one's  grave. 

What  would  Gray,  and  still  more  what  would  Shake- 
speare say  to  the  vapid  confusion  of  opinions  which  have 
been  laid  on  the  bard's  memory  during  the  century  that 
now  intervenes  between  these  verses  and  ourselves  ; — 
a  heap  of  dirt  and  stones  which  he  must  laboriously 
shovel  away  who  would  read  the  true  inscription  on  the 
Prophet's  tomb?  For  criticism  of  the  type  which  has 
now  become  so  common,  for  the  counting  of  syllables  and 
weighing  of  commas,  Gray,  with  all  his  punctilio  and  his 
minute  scholarship,  had  nothing  but  contempt :  — 

Much  I  have  borne  from  cankei'ed  critic's  spite, 
From  fumbling  baronets,  and  poets  small, 

Pert  barristers,  and  parsons  nothing  bright:  - 
But  what  awaits  me  now  is  worst  of  all. 

Mason  at  last,  at  the  age  of  forty,  had  fallen  in  love 
with  a  lady  of  small  fortune  and  less  personal  appearance, 
but  very  sweet  manners  ;  and  while  Gray  was  still  lingering 
in  the  North  his  friend  married.  Meantime  Gray  passed 
on  to  Old  Park,  and  spent  the  month  of  August  with  the 
Whartons.  From  this  place  he  went  to  stay  with  Lord 
Strathmore  at  Hetton,  in  Durham,  and  towards  the  begin- 
ning of  September  set  out  with  his  host  and  Major  Lyon, 


viii.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  171 

his  brother,  for  Scotland.  The  first  night  was  passed  at 
Tweedmonth,  and  the  second  at  Edinburgh  ("that  most  pic- 
turesque at  a  distance,  and  nastiest  when  near,  of  all  capital 
cities  ").  Gray  was  instantly  received  with  honour  by  the 
Scotch  literati.  On  the  evening  of  his  arrival  he  supped 
with  Dr.  W.  Robertson  and  other  leading  men  of  letters. 
Next  day  the  party  crossed  the  Forth  in  Lord  Strath- 
more's  yawl,  and  reached  Perth,  and  by  dinner-time  on  the 
fourth  day  arrived  at  Glamis.  Here  Gray  was  extremely 
happy  for  some  bright  weeks,  charmed  with  the  beauty  of 
the  scenery  and  the  novelty  of  the  life,  soothed  and 
delighted  by  the  refined  hospitality  of  the  Lyons,  three  of 
whom,  including  Lord  Strathmore,  he  had  known  as 
undergraduates  at  Cambridge,  and  enchanted  to  hear 
spoken  and  sung  on  all  sides  of  him  the  magical  language 
of  Ossian.  On  the  11th  of  September  Lord  Strathmore 
took  him  for  a  tour  of  five  days  in  the  Highlands,  showed 
him  Dunkeld,  Taymouth,  and  the  falls  of  Tummell,  the 
Pass  of  Killiekrankie,  Blair-Athol  and  the  peaks  of  the 
Grampians  ;  "  in  short,"  he  says,  "  since  I  saw  the  Alps,  I 
have  seen  nothing  sublime  till  now." 

Immediately  on  his  arrival  at  Glamis,  he  had  received  an 
exceedingly  polite  letter  from  the  poet  Beattie,  who  was  a 
professor  at  Aberdeen,  pressing  him  to  visit  that  city,  and 
requesting,  that,  if  this  was  impossible,  he  himself  might  be 
allowed  to  travel  southward  to  Glamis,  to  present  his  com- 
pliments to  Gray.  At  the  same  time  the  University  of 
Aberdeen  offered  him  the  degree  of  doctor  of  laws.  Gray 
declined  both  the  invitation  and  the  honour,  but  said  that 
Lord  Strathmore  would  be  very  glad  to  see  Beattie  at  Glamis. 
The  younger  poet  accordingly  posted  to  lay  his  enthusiasm  at 
the  feet  of  the  elder,  and  Gray  received  him  with  unwonted 
openness  and  a  sort  of  intimate  candour  rare  with  him. 


172  GRAY.  [chap 

Beattie  reports,  among  other  things,  that  Dryden  was 
mentioned  by  him  with  scant  respect,  upon  which  Gray 
remarked  "  that  if  there  was  any  excellence  in  his  own 
numbers,  he  had  learned  it  wholly  from  that  great  poet. 
And  pressed  him  with  great  earnestness  to  study  him,  as 
his  choice  of  words  and  versification  were  singularly 
happy  and  harmonious." 

Gray  came  back  from  the  mountains  with  feelings  far 
other  than  those  in  which  Dr.  Johnson  indulged  when  he 
found  himself  safe  once  more  in  the  latitude  of  Fleet 
Street.  "  I  am  returned  from  Scotland,"  says  the  poet, 
"  charmed  with  my  expedition  j  it  is  of  the  Highlands  I 
speak ;  the  Lowlands  are  worth  seeing  once,  but  the 
mountains  are  ecstatic,  and  ought  to  be  visited  in  pilgrim- 
age once  a  year.  None  but  these  monstrous  children  of 
God  know  how  to  join  so  much  beauty  with  so  much  horror. 
A  fig  for  your  poets,  painters,  gardeners  and  clergymen, 
that  have  not  been  among  them  ;  their  imagination  can  be 
made  up  of  nothing  but  bowling-greens,  flowering  shrubs, 
horse-ponds,  Fleet-ditches,  shell-grottoes,  and  Chinese  rails. 
Then  I  had  so  beautiful  an  autumn,  Italy  could  hardly 
produce  a  nobler  scene,  and  this  so  sweetly  contrasted  with 
that  perfection  of  nastiness,  and  total  want  of  accommo- 
dation, that  Scotland  can  only  supply." 

Mason  had  married  on  the  25th  of  September,  and  greatly 
desired  that  Gray,  when  passing  southward  towards  the  end 
of  October,  should  come  and  be  the  witness  of  his  felicity 
at  Aston,  but  Gray  excused  himself  on  the  grounds  that 
his  funds  were  exhausted,  and  went  straight  through  to 
London.  There  he  found  his  old  friend  Harriet  Speed, 
now  Madame  de  la  Peyriere,  whose  husband  was  in  the 
Italian  diplomatic  service.  She  was  exceedingly  glad  to 
receive  him,  and  welcomed  him  with  two  little  dogs  on 


viii.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  173 

her  lap,  a  cockatoo  on  her  shoulder,  a  piping  bullfinch  at 
her  elbow,  and  a  strong  suspicion  of  rouge  on  her  cheeks. 
For  about  six  months  after  the  tour  in  Scotland  Gray 
enjoyed  very  tolerable  health,  remaining  however  entirely 
indolent  as  far  as  literature  was  concerned.  When  Wal- 
pole  told  him  he  ought  to  write  more,  he  replied: — 
"  What  has  one  to  do,  when  turned  of  fifty,  but  really  to 
think  of  finishing  fl  However,  I  will  be  candid,  for  you 
seem  to  be  so  with  me,  and  avow  to  you,  that  till  fourscore 
and  upwards,  whenever  the  humour  takes  me,  I  will  write ; 
because  I  like  it,  and  because  I  like  myself  better  when  I 
do  so.     If  I  do  not  write  much  it  is  because  I  cannot." 

Henceforward  the  chief  events  in  Gray's  life  were  his 
summer  holidays.  In  May  and  June,  1766,  he  paid  a 
visit  to  the  friend  whom  he  called  Reverend  Billy,  the 
Rev.  William  Robinson,  younger  brother  of  the  famous 
Mrs.  Montagu.  This  gentleman  was  rector  of  Denton, 
in  the  county  of  Kont,  a  little  quiet  valley  some  eight 
miles  to  the  east  of  Canterbury  and  near  the  sea.  Gray 
took  the  opportunity  of  visiting  Margate  and  Ramsgate, 
which  were  just  beginning  to  become  resorts  for  holiday 
folk.  It  is  related  that  at  the  latter  place  the  friends  went 
to  inspect  the  new  pier,  then  lately  completed.  Somebody 
said,  seeing  it  forlorn  and  empty,  "  What  did  they  make 
this  pier  for?"  whereupon  Gray  smartly  replied,  "For  me 
to  walk  on,"  and  proceeded  to  claim  possession  of  it,  by 
striding  along  it.  He  visited  the  whole  coast  of  Kent,  as 
far  as  Hythe,  in  company  with  Mr.  Robinson.  The  county 
charmed  him  :  he  wrote  to  Norton  Nicholls  : — 

The  country  is  all  a  garden,  gay,  rich,  and  fruitful,  and  from 
the  rainy  season  had  preserved,  till  I  left  it,  all  that  emerald 
verdure,  which  commonly  one  only  sees  for  the  first  fortnight  of 
the  spring.     In  the  west  part  of  it  from  every  eminence  the  eye 


174  GRAY.  fcHAP. 

catches  some  long  winding  reach  of  the  Thames  or  Medway, 
with  all  their  navigation  ;  in  the  east,  the  sea  breaks  in  upon 
you,  and  mixes  its  white  transient  sails  and  glittering  blue 
expanse  with  the  deeper  and  brighter  greens  of  the  woods  and 
the  corn.  This  last  sentence  is  so  fine,  I  am  quite  ashamed ; 
but,  no  matter !  you  must  translate  it  into  prose.  Palgrave, 
if  he  heard  it,  would  cover  his  face  with  his  pudding  sleeve. 

He  read  the  New  Bath  Guide,  which  had  just  appeared, 
and  was  tempted  to  indulge  in  satire  of  a  different  sort, 
by  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Formian  villa  built  by  the 
late  Lord  Holland  at  Kingsgate.  These  powerful  verses 
were  found  in  a  drawer  at  Denton  after  Gray  had 
left:— 

Old,  and  abandoned  by  each  venal  friend, 
Here  Holland  formed  the  pious  resolution, 

To  smuggle  a  few  years  and  try  to  mend 
A  broken  character  and  constitution. 

On  this  congenial  spot  he  fixed  his  choice : 

Earl  Goodwin  trembled  for  his  neighbouring  sand ; 

Here  sea-gulls  scream,  and  cormorants  rejoice, 

And  mariners,  though  shipwrecked,  dread  to  land. 

Here  reign  the  blustering  North  and  blighting  East, 
No  tree  is  heard  to  whisper,  bird  to  sing ; 

Yet  Nature  could  not  furnish  out  the  feast, 
Art  he  invokes  new  horrors  still  to  bring, 

Here  mouldering  fanes  and  battlements  arise, 

Turrets  and  arches  nodding  to  their  fall, 
Unpeopled  monastries  delude  our  eyes, 

And  mimic  desolation  covers  all. 

"  Ah !  "  said  the  sighing  peer,  "had  Bate  been  true, 
Nor  Mungo's,  Bigby's,  Bradshaw'a  friendship  vain, 
Far  better  scenes  than  these  had  blest  our  view, 
And  realized  the  beauties  which  we  feign : 


vin.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  l'/b 

Purged  by  the  sword,  and  purified  by  fire, 

Then  had  we  seen  proud  London's  hated  walls ; 

Owls  might  have  hooted  in  St.  Peter's  choir, 
And  foxes  stunk  and  littered  in  St.  Paul's. 

In  November  1766  Mason  came  to  visit  Gray  in  his 
lodgings  in  Jermyn  Street  and  brought  his  wife,  "a 
pretty,  modest,  innocent,  interesting  figure,  looking  like 
eighteen,  though  she  is  near  twenty-eight."  She  was  far 
gone  in  consumption,  but  preserved  a  muscular  strength 
and  constitutional  energy  which  deceived  those  who  sur- 
rounded her.  The  winter  of  1766  tried  her  endurance 
very  severely,  and  she  gradually  sank.  On  the  27th  of 
March,  1767,  after  a  married  life  of  only  eighteen  months, 
she  expired  in  Mason's  arms,  at  Bristol  Gray's  corre- 
spondence through  the  three  months  which  preceded  her 
end  displays  a  constant  and  lively  concern,  which  reached 
its  climax  in  the  exquisite  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Mason 
the  day  after  her  death,  before  the  fatal  news  had  reached 
him.  In  the  whole  correspondence  of  a  man  whose  unaf- 
fected sympathy  was  always  at  the  service  of  his  friends, 
there  is  no  expression  of  it  more  touching  than  this  : — 

March  28, 1767. 
My  deae  Mason, — I  break  in  upon  you  at  a  moment  when 
we  least  of  all  are  permitted  to  disturb  our  friends,  only  to 
say  that  you  are  daily  and  hourly  present  to  my  thoughts. 
If  the  worst  be  not  yet  past,  you  will  neglect  and  pardon 
me;  but  if  the  last  struggle  be  over,  if  the  poor  object  of 
your  long  anxieties  be  no  longer  sensible  to  your  kindness  or  to 
her  own  sufferings,  allow  me  (at  least  in  idea,  for  what  could 
I  do  were  I  present  more  than  this)  to  sit  by  you  in  silence, 
and  pity  from  my  heart,  not  her  who  is  at  rest,  but  you  who 
lose  her.  May  He  who  made  us,  the  Master  of  our  pleasures 
and  our  pains,  preserve  and  support  you.  Adieu!  I  have 
long  understood  how  little  you  had  to  hope. 


176  GRAY.  [chap. 

About  a  month  earlier  than  this,  at  the  very  early  age 
of  thirty-six,  an  old  acquaintance  and  quondam  college 
friend  of  Gray's,  Frederic  Hervey,  was  presented  to  the 
diocese  of  Cloyne.  This  was  a  startling  rise  in  life  to  a 
ne'er-do-weel  of  good  family,  who  had  not  six  years 
before  been  begging  Mason  and  Gray  to  help  him,  and 
who  soon  after  this  became,  not  merely  Bishop  of  Derry, 
but  Earl  of  Bristol.  Gray  saw  a  good  deal  of  him  during 
the  summer  of  1767,  and  describes  how  they  ate  four 
raspberry  puffs  together  in  that  historical  pastry-cook's  at 
the  corner  of  Cranbourne  Street,  and  how  jolly  Hervey 
was  at  finding  himself  a  bishop.  Gray's  summer  holiday 
in  1767  was  again  spent  among  the  mountains.  In  June 
he  went  down  to  Aston  to  console  Mason,  and  with  him 
visited  Dovedale  and  the  wonders  of  the  Peak  ;  early  in 
July  Gray  set  out  by  York  to  stay  with  Wharton  at  Old 
Park,  from  which  in  August  he  sent  back  to  Beattie  the 
manuscript  of  The  Minstrel,  which  that  poet  had  sent, 
requesting  him  to  revise  it.  Gray  gave  a  great  deal  of 
attention  to  this  rather  worthless  production,  which  has 
no  merit  save  some  smoothness  in  the  use  of  the  Spen- 
serian stanza,  and  which  owed  all  its  character  to  a  clever 
poem  in  the  same  manner,  published  twenty  years  earlier, 
the  Psyche  of  Dr.  Gloucester  Ridley,  a  poet  whose  name, 
perhaps,  may  yet  one  day  find  an  apologist.  Gray,  how 
ever,  never  grudged  to  expend  his  critical  labour  to  the 
advantage  of  a  friend,  and  pruned  the  luxuriance  of  The 
Minstrel  with  a  serious  assiduity. 

Meanwhile  Lord  Strathmore  was  at  hand,  marrying  him- 
self to  a  great  Durham  heiress  ;  Gray  made  a  trip  to  Hartle- 
pool in  August,  and  coming  back  stayed  with  the  newly- 
wedded  earl  and  countess  at  their  castle  of  Gibside,  near 
Ravensworth.    On  the  29th  of  August  he  and  Dr.  Wharton 


viii.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  177 

set  out  in  a  post-chaise  by  Newcastle  and  Hexham  for  the 
lakes.  On  their  way  to  Carlisle  they  got  soaked  in  the 
rain,  and  Wharton  was  taken  so  ill  with  asthma  at  Kes- 
wick, that  they  returned  home  to  Old  Park  from  Cocker- 
mouth  after  hardly  a  glimpse  of  the  mountains.  In  the 
church  at  Appleby,  the  epitaph  of  Anne,  Countess  of 
Dorset,  amused  Gray  by  its  pomposity,  and  he  improvised 
the  following  pleasing  variation  on  it : — 

Now  clean,  now  hideous,  mellow  now,  now  gruff, 
She  swept,  she  hiss'd,  she  ripen' d,  and  grew  rough, 
At  Brougham,  Pendragon,  Appleby  and  Brough. 

Mason  buried  his  wife  in  the  Cathedral  of  Bristol,  and 
on  the  tablet  which  bears  her  name  he  inscribed  a  brief 
elegy  which  has  outlived  all  the  rest  of  his  works,  and  is 
still  frequently  quoted  with  praise.      It  runs  thus : — 

Take,  holy  earth  !  all  that  my  soul  holds  dear: 

Take  that  best  gift  which  Heaven  so  lately  gave : 
To  Bristol's  fount  I  bore  with  trembling  care 

Her  faded  form  :  she  bow'd  to  taste  the  wave, 
And  died.     Does  Youth,  does  Beauty,  read  the  line  ? 

Does  sympathetic  fear  their  breasts  alarm  ? 
Speak,  dead  Maria !  breathe  a  strain  divine : 

E'en  from  the  grave  thou  shalt  have  power  to  charm. 
Bid  them  be  chaste,  be  innocent  like  thee  ; 

Bid  them  in  Duty's  sphere  as  meekly  move ; 
And  if  so  fair,  from  vanity  as  free, 

As  firm  in  friendship,  and  as  fond  in  love, 
Tell  them,  though  'tis  an  awfid  thing  to  die, 

{'Twas  ev'n  to  thee)  yet  the  dread  path  once  trod, 
Heaven  lifts  its  everlasting  portals  high, 

And  bids  the  pure  in  heart  behold  their  God. 

The  last  four  lines  have  the  ring  of  genuine  poetry,  and 
surpass  the  rest  of  Mason's  productions  in  verse  as  gold 
surpasses  dross.     It  is  a  very  curious  thing  that  he  does, 

N 


178  GRAY.  [chap. 

in  fact,  owe  his  position  as  a  poet  to  some  lines  which  he 
did  not  write  himself.  As  long  as  he  lived,  and  for  many 
years  after  his  death,  the  secret  was  kept,  but  at  last 
Norton  Nicholls  confessed  that  the  beautiful  quatrain  in 
italics  was  entirely  composed  by  Gray.  Nicholls  was  with 
the  elder  poet  at  the  time  when  the  MS.  arrived,  and 
Gray  showed  it  to  him,  with  Mason's  last  four  lines 
erased.  Gray  said,  "  That  will  never  do  for  an  ending ; 
I  have  altered  it  thus,"  and  thereupon  wrote  in  the  stanza 
as  we  now  know  it.  Nicholls  says  that  Mason's  finale  was 
weak,  with  a  languid  repetition  of  some  preceding  ex- 
pressions ;  and  he  took  the  occasion  to  criticize  the  whole 
of  Mason's  poetry  as  feeble  and  tame.  "  No  wonder," 
said  Gray,  "  for  Mason  never  gives  himself  time  to  think. 
If  his  epithets  do  not  occur  readily,  he  leaves  spaces  for 
them,  and  puts  them  in  afterwards.  Mason  has  read  too 
little  and  written  too  much."  It  is  well  that  we  should 
have  this  side  of  the  question  stated,  for  Mason  loves  to 
insinuate  that  Gray  thought  him  a  poet  of  superlative 
merit.  There  was  no  love  lost  between  Mason  and 
Nicholls,  and  if  the  younger  carefully  preserved  Gray's 
verdict  on  the  poetry  of  the  elder,  Mason  revenged  him- 
self by  remarking  that  it  was  a  good  thing  for  Nicholls 
that  Gray  never  discovered  that  he  drank  like  a  fish.  We 
are  reminded  of  the  wars  of  Bozzy  and  Piozzi. 

In  the  spring  of  1767  Gray  met  Dodsley,  son  of  the 
great  publisher  and  heir  to  his  business,  and  was  asked 
by  him  to  consent  to  the  republication  of  his  poems  in  a 
cheap  form.  It  was  found  that  Bentley's  designs  were 
worn  out,  and  therefore  it  was  determined  to  omit  all 
illustrations,  and  with  them  the  Long  Story,  which  Gray 
thought  would  now  be  unintelligible.  While  this  trans- 
action was  loitering  along,  as  Gray's  business  was  apt  to 


vin.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  179 

loiter,  Beattle  wrote  to  him,  in  December  1767,  to  say- 
that  Foulis,  an  enterprising  Glasgow  publisher,  was 
anxious  to  produce  the  same  collection.  Dodsley  made 
no  objection,  and  so  exactly  the  same  matter  was  put 
through  two  presses  at  the  same  time.  In  neither  book 
had  Gray  any  pecuniary  interest.  There  had  been  no  ex- 
planatory notes  in  the  Odes  of  1757,  but  in  reprinting  these 
poems  eleven  years  later,  he  added  a  few  "  out  of  spite, 
because  the  public  did  not  understand  the  two  odes  which 
I  called  Pindaric,  though  the  first  was  not  very  dark,  and 
the  second  alluded  to  a  few  common  facts  to  be  found  in 
any  sixpenny  history  of  England,  by  way  of  question  and 
answer,  for  the  use  of  children."  He  added  to  what  had 
already  appeared  in  1753  and  1757,  the  three  short  archaic 
romances,  lest,  as  he  said  to  Horace  Walpole,  "  my  works 
should  be  mistaken  for  the  works  of  a  flea,  or  a  pismire. 
....  With  all  this  I  shall  be  but  a  shrimp  of  an 
author."  The  book,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  had  to  be  eked 
out  with  blank  leaves  and  very  wide  type  to  reach  the 
sum  of  120  nominal  pages.  Dodsley's  edition  was  not  a 
beautiful  volume,  but  it  was  cheap :  it  appeared  in  July 
1768,  and  before  October  of  the  same  year  two  impressions 
consisting  of  2250  copies,  had  been  sold.  Foulis  came 
out  with  his  far  more  handsome  Glasgow  edition  in  Sep- 
tember, and  this  also,  though  a  costly  book,  of  which  a 
very  large  number  of  copies  had  been  struck  off,  was  sold 
out  by  the  summer  of  1769,  when  Foulis  made  Gray, 
who  refused  money,  a  very  handsome  present  of  books. 
During  the  last  years  of  his  life,  then,  Gray  was  not  only 
beyond  dispute  the  greatest  living  English  poet,  but 
recognized  as  being  such  by  the  public  itself. 

To  the  riotous  living  of  his  great  enemy,  Lord  Sand- 
wich, Gray  owed  the  preferment  which  raised  him  above 


180  GRAY.  [chap. 

all  fear  of  poverty,  or  even  of  temporary  pressure  of  means 
during  the  last  three  years  of  his  life.  On  Sunday,  the 
24th  of  July,  1768,  Professor  Lawrence  Brockett,  who  had 
been  dining  with  the  earl  at  Hinchinbroke,  in  Huntingdon- 
shire, while  riding  back  to  Cambridge,  being  very  drunk, 
fell  off  his  horse  and  broke  his  neck.  The  chair  of 
Modern  Literature  and  Modern  Languages,  with  its  400Z. 
a  year,  was  one  of  the  most  valuable  sinecures  in  the 
University.  Gray  was  up  in  London  at  the  time,  but  his 
cousin  Miss  Dolly  Antrobus,  for  whom  he  had  obtained 
the  office  of  post-mistress  at  Cambridge,  instantly  wrote 
up  to  town  to  tell  him.  He  did  not  stir  in  the  matter. 
With  an  admirable  briskness,  five  obscure  dons  imme- 
diately put  themselves  forward  as  candidates,  and  so  little 
did  Gray  expect  to  receive  the  place,  that  he  used  his 
influence  for  the  only  man  among  them  who  had  any 
literature  in  him,  Michael  Lort  the  Hellenist.  Gray  was 
not,  however,  to  be  overlooked  any  longer,  and  on  the 
27th  he  received  a  letter  from  that  elegant  and  enlightened 
statesman,  Augustus,  Duke  of  Grafton,  offering  the  Pro- 
fessorship in  terms  that  were  delicately  calculated  to  please 
and  soothe  his  pride.  He  was  told  that  he  owed  his 
nomination  to  the  whole  cabinet  council,  and  his  success 
to  the  King's  particular  admiration  of  his  genius;  the 
Duke  would  not  presume  to  think  that  the  post  could  be 
of  advantage  to  Gray,  but  trusted  that  he  might  be  in- 
duced to  do  so  much  credit  to  the  University.  The  poet 
accepted  at  once,  on  the  28th  his  warrant  was  signed,  and 
on  the  29th  he  was  summoned  to  kiss  the  King's  hand. 
These  were  days  in  which  George  III.  was  still  addicted 
to  polite  letters,  and  Gray's  friends  were  anxious  to  know 
the  purport  of  several  very  gracious  speeches  which  the 
King  was  observed  to  make  to  him ;  but  Gray  was  coy, 


viii.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  181 

and  would  not  tell ;  when  he  was  pressed,  he  said,  with 
great  simplicity,  that  the  room  was  so  hot  and  he  himself 
so  embarrassed,  that  he  really  did  not  quite  know  what  it 
was  the  King  did  say. 

The  charge  has  often  been  brought  against  Gray  that  he 
delivered  no  lectures  from  his  chair  at  Cambridge.  It 
is,  of  course,  very  unfortunate  that  he  did  not,  but  it 
should  be  remembered  that  there  was  nothing  singular  in 
this.  Not  one  of  his  predecessors,  from  the  date  of  the 
institution  of  the  professorship,  had  delivered  a  single 
lecture ;  Gray,  indeed,  was  succeeded  by  a  man  of  great 
energy,  John  Symonds,  who  introduced  a  variety  of  re- 
forms at  Cambridge,  and,  among  others,  reformed  his  own 
office  by  lecturing.  The  terms  of  the  patent  recommended 
the  professor  to  find  a  deputy  in  one  branch  of  his  duty, 
and  Gray  delegated  the  teaching  of  foreign  languages  to  a 
young  Italian,  Agostino  Isola,  of  literary  tastes,  who  sur- 
vived long  enough  to  teach  Tuscan  to  Wordsworth.  It  is 
said  that  Gray  took  the  opportunity  of  reading  the  Italian 
poets  again  with  Isola,  who  afterwards  became  an  editor 
of  Tasso.  The  granddaughter  of  Gray's  deputy  was  that 
Emma  Isola  who  became  the  adopted  child  of  Charles  and 
Mary  Lamb.  One  is  glad  to  know  that  Gray  behaved 
with  great  liberality  to  Isola  and  also  to  the  French  teacher 
at  the  University,  Rene  La  Butte.  It  is  pleasant  to  re- 
cord that  the  opportunity  to  follow  the  natural  dictates  of 
his  heart  in  this  and  other  instances,  he  owed  to  the 
loyalty  of  his  old  schoolfellow,  Stonehewer,  who  was  the 
secretary  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  and  who  lost  no  time  in 
suggesting  Gray's  name  to  his  chief. 

Poor  Gray,  for  ever  pursued  by  fears  of  conflagration, 
was  actually  in  great  danger  of  being  burned  alive  in 
January  1768,  when  a  part  of  Pembroke  Hall,  including 


182  GRAY.  [chap. 

Mason's  chambers,  was  totally  destroyed  by  fire.  Two 
Methodists,  who  had  been  attending  a  prayer-meeting  in 
the  town,  happened  to  pass  very  late  at  night,  and  gave 
the  alarm.  Gray  was  roused  between  two  and  three  in 
the  morning  by  the  excellent  Stephen  Hempstead,  with 
the  remark,  "  Don't  be  frighted,  Sir,  but  the  college  is  all 
of  a  fire  ! "  No  great  harm  was  done,  but  Mason  had  to 
be  lodged  a  little  lower  down  the  street,  opposite  Peter- 
house.  After  the  event  of  the  professorship,  Gray  found 
himself  unable  to  escape  from  many  public  shows  in  which 
he  had  previously  pleaded  his  obscurity  with  success. 
For  instance,  in  August  1768,  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge was  honoured  by  a  visit  from  Christian  VII.,  King 
of  Denmark,  who  had  married  the  sister  of  George  III. 
To  escape  from  the  festivities,  Gray  went  off  to  New- 
market, but  there,  as  he  says,  "  fell  into  the  jaws  of  the 
King  of  Denmark,"  was  presented  to  him  by  the  Vice- 
chancellor  and  the  Orator,  and  was  brought  back  to 
Cambridge  by  them,  captive,  in  a  chaise. 

The  Duke  of  Grafton  succeeded  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
as  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Cambridge  in  1768,  and 
Gray,  moved  by  gratitude,  though  never  by  expectation, 
made  an  offer  through  Stonehewer  that  he  should  write  an 
ode  to  be  performed  at  the  ceremony  of  installation.  He 
seems  to  have  made  the  proposal  in  the  last  months  of  the 
year.  In  April  1769,  he  says : — "  I  do  not  guess  what 
intelligence  Stonehewer  gave  you  about  my  employments, 
but  the  worst  employment  I  have  had  has  been  to  write 
something  for  music  against  the  Duke  of  Grafton  comes  to 
Cambridge.  I  must  comfort  myself  with  the  intention, 
for  I  know  it  will  bring  abuse  enough  on  me :  however,  it 
is  done,  and  given  to  the  Vice-Chancellor,  and  there  is  an 
end."     Norton  Nicholls  records  that  Gray  considered  the 


viil]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  183 

composition  of  this  Installation  Ode  a  sort  of  task,  and  set 
about  it  with  great  reluctance ;  "  it  was  long  after  he  first 
mentioned  it  to  me  before  he  could  prevail  with  himself 
to  begin  the  composition.  One  morning,  when  I  went  to 
him  as  usual  after  breakfast,  I  knocked  at  his  door,  which 
he  threw  open,  and  exclaimed  with  a  loud  voice, — 

•  Hence,  avaunt !  'tis  holy  ground  ! ' 

I  was  so  astonished,  that  I  almost  feared  he  was  out  of  his 
senses ;  but  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  Ode  which  he 
had  just  composed."  For  three  months  before  the  event, 
the  music  professor,  J.  Kandall,  of  King's,  waited  on  Gray 
regularly  to  set  the  Installation  Ode  to  music.  It  was 
Gray's  desire  to  make  this  latter  as  much  as  possible  like 
the  refined  compositions  of  the  Italian  masters  that  he 
loved,  and  Randall  did  his  best  to  comply  with  this.  Gray 
took  great  pains  over  the  score,  though  in  his  private  letters 
he  spoke  with  scorn  of  Randall's  music ;  but  when  he  came 
to  the  chorus,  Gray  remarked,  "  I  have  now  done,  make 
as  much  noise  as  you  please  !  "  Dr.  Burney,  it  afterwards 
turned  out,  was  very  much  disappointed  because  he  was 
not  asked  to  set  Gray's  composition.  The  Installation  Ode 
was  performed  before  a  brilliant  assembly  on  July  the  1st, 
1769,  Gray  all  the  while  sighing  to  be  far  away  upon  the 
misty  top  of  Skiddaw.  In  the  midst  of  all  the  turmoil 
and  circumstance  of  the  installation  he  wrote  in  this  way 
to  Norton  Nicholls,  who  had  consulted  him  about  the 
arrangement  of  his  gardens  : — 

And  so  you  have  a  garden  of  your  own,  and  you  plant  and 
transplant,  and  are  dirty  and  amused !  Are  you  not  ashamed 
of  yourself?  Why,  I  have  no  such  thing,  you  monster,  nor 
ever  shall  be  either  dirty  or  amused  as  long  as  I  live.      My 


184  GRAY  [cuap. 

gardens  are  in  the  window,  like  those  of  a  lodger  up  three 
pairs  of  stairs  in  Petticoat  Lane  or  Camomile  Street,  and  they 
go  to  bed  regularly  under  the  same  roof  that  I  do.  Dear, 
how  charming  it  must  be  to  walk  out  in  one's  own  garding, 
and  sit  on  a  bench  in  the  open  air,  with  a  fountain,  and  a 
leaden  statue,  and  a  rolling  stone,  and  an  arbour :  have  a  care 
of  sore  throats,  though,  and  the  agoe. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Installation  Ode,  though  it 
contains  some  beautiful  passages,  is  in  Gray's  healthiest 
vein.  In  it  he  returns,  with  excess,  to  that  allegorical 
style  of  his  youth  from  which  he  had  almost  escaped,  and 
we  are  told  a  great  deal  too  much  about  "  painted  Flattery  " 
and  "creeping  Gain," and  visionary  gentlefolks  of  that  kind. 
Where  he  gets  free  from  all  this,  and  especially  in  that 
"strophe  when,  after  a  silence  of  more  than  a  century,  we 
hear  once  more  the  music  of  Milton's  Nativity  Ode,  we 
find  him  as  charming  as  ever : — 

Ye  brown,  o'er- arching  groves, 

That  contemplation  loves, 

Where  willowy  Camus  lingers  with  delight ! 

Oft  at  the  blush  of  dawn 

I  trod  your  level  lawn, 

Oft  woo'd  the  gleam  of  Cynthia  silver-bright 

In  cloisters  dim,  far  from  the  haunts  of  Folly, 

With  freedom  by  my  side,  and  soft-eyed  Melancholy. 

The  procession  of  Cambridge  worthies,  which  Hallam  has 
praised  so  highly,  is  drawn  with  great  dignity,  and  the 
compliment  conveyed  in  the  sixth  strophe,  where  the 
venerable  Margaret  Beaufort  bends  from  heaven  to  salute 
her  descendant,  is  very  finely  turned ;  but  we  cannot  help 
feeling  that  the  spirit  of  languor  has  not  completely  been 
excluded  from  the  poem,  and  that  if  Gray  was  not  ex- 
hausted when  he  wrote  it  he  was  at  least  greatly  fatigued. 


Viii.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  185 

The  eulogy  of  the  "  star  of  Brunswick  "  at  the  close  of  the 
Ode  is  perhaps  the  only  absurd  passage  in  the  entire  works 
of  Gray.  After  this  he  wrote  no  verse  that  has  been  pre- 
served ;  his  faculty  seems  to  have  left  him  entirely,  and  if 
we  deplore  his  death  within  two  years  of  the  performance 
of  the  Installation  Ode,  it  is  not  without  a  suspicion  that 
the  days  of  his  poetic  life  were  already  numbered. 

In  1769  Gray  sold  part  of  his  estate,  consisting  of  houses 
on  the  west  side  of  Hand  Alley,  in  the  City,  for  one 
thousand  guineas,  and  an  annuity  of  eighty  pounds  for  Mrs. 
Oliffe,  who  had  a  share  in  the  estate.  "  I  have  also  won 
a  twenty-pound  prize  in  the  lottery,  and  Lord  knows  what 
arrears  I  have  in  the  Treasury,  and  I  am  a  rich  fellow 
enough,  go  to ; "  so  he  writes  on  the  2nd  of  January  of  that 
year  to  Norton  Nicholls;  "and  a  fellow  that  hath  had 
losses,  and  one  that  hath  two  gowns,  and  everything  hand- 
some about  him ;  and  in  a  few  days  I  shall  have  curtains, 
are  you  advised  of  that?  ay,  and  a  mattress  to  lie  upon." 

One  more  work  remained  for  Gray  to  do,  and  that  a 
considerable  one.  He  was  yet  to  discover  and  to  describe 
the  beauties  of  the  Cumbrian  Lakes.  In  his  youth  he 
was  the  man  who  first  looked  on  the  sublimities  of  Alpine 
scenery  with  pleasure,  and  in  old  age  he  was  to  be  the 
pioneer  of  Wordsworth  in  opening  the  eyes  of  Englishmen 
to  the  exquisite  landscape  of  Cumberland.  The  journal 
of  Gray's  Tour  in  the  Lakes  has  been  preserved  in  full, 
and  was  printed  by  Mason,  who  withheld  his  other  itine- 
raries. He  started  from  York,  where  he  had  been  staying 
with  Mason,  in  July  1769,  and  spent  the  next  two  months 
at  Old  Park.  On  the  30th  of  September  Gray  found  him- 
self on  the  winding  road  looking  westward,  and  with 
Appleby  and  the  long  reaches  of  the  Eden  at  his  feet.  He 
made  no  stay,  but  passed  on  to  Penrith,  for  the  night, 


186  GRAY.  [chap. 

and  in  the  afternoon  walked  up  the  Beacon  Hill,  and  saw 
"through  an  opening  in  the  bosom  of  that  cluster  of 
mountains  the  lake  of  Ulleswater,  with  the  craggy  tops  of 
a  hundred  nameless  hills."  Next  day  he  ascended  the 
brawling  bed  of  the  Eamont,  with  the  towers  of  Helvellyn 
before  him,  until  he  reached  Dunmallert.  Gray's  descrip- 
tion of  his  first  sight  of  Ulleswater,  since  sanctified  to  all 
lovers  of  poetry  by  Wordsworth's  Daffodils,  is  worth 
quoting : — 

Walked  over  a  spongy  meadow  or  two.,  and  began  to  mount 
this  hill  through  a  broad  and  straight  green  alley  among  the 
trees,  and  with  some  toil  gained  the  summit.  From  hence  saw 
the  lake  opening  directly  at  my  feet,  majestic  in  its  calmness, 
clear  and  smooth  as  a  blue  mirror,  with  winding  shores  and 
low  points  of  land  covered  with  green  enclosures,  white  farm- 
houses looking  out  among  the  trees,  and  cattle  feeding.  The 
water  is  almost  everywhere  bordered  with  cultivated  lands  gently 
sloping  upwards  till  they  reach  the  feet  of  the  mountains,  which 
rise  very  rude  and  awful  with  their  broken  tops  on  either  hand. 
Directly  in  front,  at  better  than  three  miles  distance,  Place 
Fell,  one  of  the  bravest  among  them,  pushes  its  bold  broad 
breast  into  the  midst  of  the  lake,  and  forces  it  to  alter  its  course, 
forming  first  a  large  bay  to  the  left,  and  then  bending  to  the 
right. 

It  would  seem  that  Wharton  had  been  with  his  friend 
during  the  first  part  of  this  excursion,  but  had  been  forced, 
by  a  violent  attack  of  asthma  which  came  on  at  Brough, 
to  return  home.  It  is  to  this  circumstance  alone  that  we 
owe  Gray's  Journal,  which  was  written  piecemeal,  and  sent 
by  post  to  Wharton  that  he  might  share  in  what  his  friend 
was  doing.  On  the  1st  of  October  Gray  slept  again  at 
Penrith,  and  set  out  early  next  morning  for  Keswick. 
He  passed  at  noon  under  the  gleaming  crags  of  Saddle- 


vin.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  187 

back,  the  topmost  point  of  which  "appeared  of  a  sad 
purple,  from  the  shadow  of  the  clouds  as  they  sailed 
slowly  by  it."  Passing  by  the  mystery  where  Skiddaw 
shrouded  "  his  double  front  among  Atlantic  clouds,"  Gray 
proceeded  into  Keswick,  watching  the  sunlight  reflected 
from  the  lake  on  every  facet  of  its  mountain-cup. 

It  seems  that  Gray  walked  about  everywhere  with  that 
pretty  toy,  the  Claude-Lorraine  glass,  in  his  hand,  making 
the  beautiful  forms  of  the  landscape  compose  in  its  lustrous 
chiaroscuro.  Arranging  his  glass,  in  the  afternoon  of  the 
2nd  of  October,  he  got  a  bad  fall  backwards  in  a  Keswick 
lane,  but  happily  broke  nothing  but  his  knuckles.  Next 
day,  in  company  with  the  landlord  of  the  Queen's  Head, 
he  explored  the  wonders  of  Borrowdale,  the  scene  of 
Wordsworth's  wild  poem  of  Yew  Trees.  Just  before 
entering  the  valley,  he  pauses  to  make  a  little  vignette  of 
the  scene  for  Wharton's  benefit : — 

Our  path  here  tends  to  the  left,  and  the  ground  gently  rising 
and  covered  with  a  glade  of  scattering  trees  and  bushes  on  the 
very  margin  of  the  water,  opens  both  ways  the  most  delicious 
view,  that  my  eyes  ever  beheld.  Behind  you  are  the  magnificent 
heights  of  Walla  Crag ;  opposite  lie  the  thick  hanging  woods 
of  Lord  Egremont,  and  Newland  Valley,  with  green  and  smiling 
fields  embosomed  in  the  dark  cliffs ;  to  the  left  the  jaws  of 
Borrowdale,  with  that  turbulent  chaos  of  mountain  behind 
mountain  rolled  in  confusion ;  beneath  you,  and  stretching  far 
away  to  the  right,  the  shining  purity  of  the  lake,  just  ruffled 
with  the  breeze,  enough  to  show  it  is  alive,  reflecting  rocks, 
woods,  fields,  and  inverted  tops  of  mountains,  with  the  white 
buildings  of  Keswick,  Crossthwaite  Church,  and  Skiddaw  for  a 
back-ground  at  a  distance.  Oh  !  Doctor,  I  never  wished  more 
for  you. 

All  this  is  much  superior  in  graphic  power  to  what  the 


188  GRAY.  [chap. 

Paul  Sandbys  and  Richard  Wilsons  could  at  that  time 
attain  to  in  the  art  of  painting.  Their  best  landscapes,  with 
their  sobriety  and  conscious  artificiality,  their  fine  tone 
and  studious  repression  of  reality,  are  more  allied  to  those 
elegant  and  conventional  descriptions  of  the  picturesque 
by  which  William  Gilpin  made  himself  so  popular  twenty 
years  later.  Even  Smith  of  Derby,  whose  engravings  of 
Cumberland  scenes  had  attracted  notice,  was  tamely 
topographical  in  his  treatment  of  them.  Gray  gives  us 
something  more  modern,  yet  no  less  exact,  and  reminds  us 
more  of  the  early  landscapes  of  Turner,  with  their 
unaffected  rendering  of  nature.  Southey's  early  letters 
from  the  Lakes,  written  nearly  a  generation  later  than 
Gray's,  though  more  developed  in  romantic  expression, 
are  not  one  whit  truer  or  more  graphic. 

Lodore  seems  to  have  been  even  in  those  days  a  sight 
to  which  visitors  were  taken  j  Gray  gives  a  striking 
account  of  it,  but  confesses  that  the  crags  of  Gowder 
were,  to  his  mind,  far  more  impressive  than  this  slender 
cascade.  The  piles  of  shattered  rock  that  hung  above  the 
pass  of  Gowder  gave  him  a  sense  of  danger  as  well  as  of 
sublimity,  and  reminded  him  of  the  Alps.  He  glanced 
at  the  balanced  crags,  and  hurried  on,  whispering  to  him- 
self "  non  ragionam  di  lor,  ma  guarda,  e  passa ! "  The 
weather  was  most  propitious ;  if  anything,  too  brilliantly 
hot ;  it  had  suggested  itself  to  Gray  that  in  such  clear 
weather  and  under  such  a  radiant  sky  he  ought  to  ascend 
Skiddaw,  but  his  laziness  got  the  better  of  him,  and  he 
judged  himself  better  employed  in  sauntering  along  the 
shore  of  Derwentwater : — 

In  the  evening  walked  alone  down  to  the  Lake  by  the  side  of 
Crow  Park  after  sunset,  and  saw  the  solemn  colouring  of  light 
draw  on,  the  last  gleam  of  sunshine  fading  away  on  the  hill- 


viii.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  189 

tops,  the  deep  serene  of  the  waters,  and  the  loDg  shadows  of  the 
mountains  thrown  across  them,  till  they  nearly  touched  the 
hithermost  shore.  At  distance  heard  the  murmur  of  many 
water-falls,  not  audible  in  the  day-time.  Wished  lor  the  Moon, 
but  she  was  dark  to  me  and  silent,  hid  in  her  vacant  inter  lunar 


Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  has  noticed  that  Gray  has  tne 
accent  of  Obermann  in  such  passages  as  these :  it  is  the 
full  tone  of  the  romantic  solitary  without  any  ot  the 
hysterical  over-gorgeousness  which  has  ruined  modern 
description  of  landscape.  The  4th  of  October  was  a  day 
of  rest ;  the  traveller  contented  himseli  with  watching  a 
procession  of  red  clouds  come  marching  up  the  eastern  hills, 
and  with  gazing  across  the  waterfall  into  the  gorge  of 
Borrowdale.  On  the  5th  he  walked  down  the  Derwent  to 
Bassenthwaite  Water,  and  skirmished  a  little  around  the 
flanks  of  Skiddaw ;  on  the  6th  he  drove  along  the  eastern 
shore  of  Bassenthwaite  towards  Cockermouth,  but  did  not 
reach  that  town,  and  returned  to  Keswick.  The  next  day, 
the  weather  having  suddenly  become  chilly  and  autumnal, 
Gray  made  no  excursions,  but  botanized  along  the  borders 
of  Derwentwater,  with  the  perfume  of  the  wild  myrtle  in 
his  nostrils.  A  little  touch  in  writing  to  Wharton  of  the 
weather  shows  us  the  neat  and  fastidious  side  of  Gray's 
character.  "  The  soil  is  so  thin  and  light,''  he  says  of  the 
neighbourhood  of  Keswick,  "  that  no  day  has  passed  in 
which  I  could  not  walk  out  with  ease,  and  you  know  I 
am  no  lover  of  dirt."  On  the  8th  he  drove  out  of  Keswick 
along  the  Ambleside  road  ;  the  wind  was  easterly  and  the 
sky  grey,  but  just  as  they  left  the  valley,  the  sun  broke  out, 
and  bathed  the  lakes  and  mountain-sides  with  such  a  won- 
derful morning  glory  that  Gray  almost  made  up  his  mind 
to  go  back  again.     He  was  particularly  fascinated  with  the 


190  GRAY.  [chap. 

"clear  obscure  "  of  Thirlmere,  shaded  by  the  spurs  of  Hel- 
vellyn ;  and  entering  Westmoreland,  descended  into  what 
Wordsworth  was  to  make  classic  ground  thirty  years 
later,  Grasmere, — 

Its  crags,  its  woody  steeps,  its  lakes, 
Its  one  green  island,  and  its  winding  shores, 
The  multitude  of  little  rocky  hills, 
Its  church,  and  cottages  of  mountain  stone, 
Clustered  like  stars. 

This  fragment  of  Wordsworth  may  be  confronted  by  Gray's 
description  of  the  same  scene  : — 

Just  beyond  Helen  Crag,  opens  one  of  the  sweetest  landscapes 
that  art  ever  attempted  to  imitate.  The  bosom  of  the  mountains, 
spreading  here  into  a  broad  basin,  discovers  in  the  midst  Gras- 
mere Water ;  its  margin  is  hollowed  into  small  bays  with  bold 
eminences,  some  of  them  rocks,  some  of  soft  turf  that  half  con- 
ceal and  vary  the  figure  of  the  little  lake  they  command.  From 
the  shore  a  low  promontory  pushes  itself  far  into  the  water,  and 
on  it  stands  a  white  village  with  the  parish  church  rising  in  the 
midst  of  it;  hanging  enclosures,  corn-fields,  and  meadows  green 
as  an  emerald,  with  their  trees,  hedges,  and  cattle,  fill  up  the 
whole  space  from  the  edge  of  the  water.  Just  opposite  to  you 
is  a  large  farmhouse  at  the  bottom  of  a  steep  smooth  lawn  em- 
bosomed in  old  woods,  which  climb  half-way  up  the  mountain- 
side, and  discover  above  them  a  broken  line  of  crags,  that  crown 
the  scene.  Not  a  single  red  tile,  no  flaring  gentleman's  house, 
or  garden-walls,  break  in  upon  the  repose  of  this  little  unsus- 
pected paradise  ;  but  all  is  peace,  rusticity,  and  happy  poverty  in 
its  neatest  and  most  becoming  attire. 

Passing  from  Grasmere,  he  drove  through  Rydal,  not 
without  a  reference  to  the  "  large  old-fashioned  fabric,  now 
a  farm-house,"  which  Wordsworth  was  to  buy  in  1813,  and 
was  to  immortalize  with  his  memory.     I  have  not  been 


vin.]  ENGLISH  TRAVELS.  191 

able  to  find  any  word  in  the  writings  of  the  younger  poet 
to  show  his  consciousness  of  the  fact  that  Gray's  eye  was 
attracted  to  the  situation  of  Bydal  Mount  exactly  six 
months  before  he  himself  saw  the  light  at  Cockermouth. 
At  Ambleside,  then  quite  unprepared  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  strangers,  Gray  could  find  no  decent  bed,  and  so 
went  on  to  Kendal,  for  the  first  few  miles  skirting  the 
broad  waters  of  Windermere,  magnificent  in  the  soft  light 
of  afternoon.  He  spent  two  nights  at  Kendal,  drove 
round  Morecambe  Bay  and  slept  at  Lancaster  on  the 
10th  j  reached  Settle,  under  the  "  long  black  cloud  of 
Ingleborough,"  on  the  12th ;  and  we  find  him  still  wan- 
dering among  the  wild  western  moors  of  Yorkshire  when 
the  journal  abruptly  closes  on  the  15th  of  October.  On 
the  18th  he  was  once  more  at  Aston  with  Mason,  and 
he  returned  to  Cambridge  on  the  22nd,  after  a  holiday  of 
rather  more  than  three  months. 


CHAPTEK  IX. 


BONSTETTEN DEATH. 


Gray  became,  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  an  object  of 
some  curiosity  at  Cambridge.  He  was  difficult  of  access, 
except  to  his  personal  friends.  It  was  the  general  habit 
to  dine  in  college  at  noon,  so  that  the  students  might 
flock,  without  danger  of  indigestion,  to  the  philosophical 
disputations  at  two  o'clock.  The  fellows  dined  together 
in  the  Parlour,  or  the  "  Combination  "  as  the  common- 
room  came  to  be  called  ;  and  even  when  they  dined  in 
hall,  they  were  accustomed  to  meet,  in  the  course  of  the 
morning,  over  a  seed-cake  and  a  bottle  of  sherry-sack. 
But  Gray  kept  aloof  from  these  convivialities,  at  which 
indeed,  as  not  being  a  fellow,  he  was  not  obliged  to  be 
present ;  and  his  dinner  was  served  to  him,  by  his  man, 
in  his  own  rooms.  In  the  same  way,  when  he  was  in 
town,  at  his  lodgings  in  Jermyn  Street,  his  meals  were 
brought  in  to  him  from  an  eating-house  round  the  corner. 
Almost  the  only  time  at  which  strangers  could  be  sure  of 
seeing  him  was  when  he  went  to  the  Rainbow  coffee- 
house, at  Cambridge,  to  order  his  books  from  the  circu- 
lating library.  The  registers  were  kept  by  the  woman  at 
the  bar,  and  no  book  was  bought  unless  the  requisition  for 
it  was  signed  by  four  subscribers.  Towards  the  end  of 
Gray's  life,  literary  tuft-hunters  used  to  contend  for  the 


ch.  ix.]  BONSTETTEN.  193 

honour  of  supporting  Gray's  requests  for  books.  There 
was  in  particular  a  Mr.  Pigott  who  desired  to  be  thought 
the  friend  of  the  poet,  and  who  went  so  far  as  to  erase  the 
next  subscriber's  name,  and  place  his  own  underneath  the 
neat  "T.  Gray."  It  happened  that  Gray  objected  very 
much  to  this  particular  gentleman,  and  he  remarked  one 
day  to  his  friend  Mr.  Sparrow,  "  That  man's  name 
wherever  I  go,  ptget,  he  Pigotfs  me  ! "  It  is  said  that 
when  Gray  emerged  from  his  chambers,  graduates  would 
hastily  leave  their  dinners  to  look  at  him,  but  we  may 
doubt,  with  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen,  whether  this  is  within 
the  bounds  of  probability  j  Mathias,  however,  who  would 
certainly  have  left  his  dinner,  was  a  whole  year  at  Cam- 
bridge without  being  able  to  set  eyes  on  Gray  once.  Lord 
St.  Helen's  told  Rogers  that  when  he  was  at  St.  John's  in 
1770,  he  called  on  Gray  with  a  letter  of  introduction,  and 
that  Gray  returned  the  call,  which  was  thought  so  extra- 
ordinary, that  a  considerable  number  of  college  men 
assembled  in  the  quadrangle  to  see  him  pass,  and  all  re- 
moved their  caps  when  he  went  by.  He  brought  three 
young  dons  with  him,  and  the  procession  walked  in  Indian 
file;  his  companions  seem  to  have  attended  in  silence, 
and  to  have  expressed  dismay  on  their  countenances  when 
Lord  St.  Helen's  frankly  asked  the  poet  what  he  thought 
of  Garrick's  Jubilee  Ode, — which  was  just  published.  Gray 
replied  that  he  was  easily  pleased. 

Unaffected  to  the  extreme  with  his  particular  friends, 
Gray  seems  to  have  adopted  with  strangers  whom  he 
did  not  like,  a  supercilious  air,  and  a  tone  of  great 
languor  and  hauteur.  Cole,  who  did  not  appreciate  him, 
speaks,  in  an  unpublished  note,  of  his  "  disgusting 
effeminacy,"  by  which  he  means  what  we  call  affecta- 
tion.    Mason    says    that    he    used    this    manner    as   a 

O 


194  GRAY.  [chap. 

means  of  offence  and  defence  towards  persons  whom  he 
disliked.  Here  is  a  picture  of  him  the  year  before 
he  died  :  "  Mr.  Gray's  singular  niceness  in  the  choice 
of  his  acquaintance  makes  him  appear  fastidious  in 
a  great  degree  to  all  who  are  not  acquainted  with  his 
manner.  He  is  of  a  fastidious  and  recluse  distance  of 
carriage,  rather  averse  to  all  sociability,  but  of  the  graver 
turn,  nice  and  elegant  in  his  person,  dress,  and  behaviour, 
even  to  a  degree  of  finicality  and  effeminacy."  This 
conception  of  him  as  an  affected  and  effeminate  little  per- 
sonage was  widely  current  during  his  own  lifetime.  Mr. 
Penneck,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Museum  Reading- 
Room,  had  a  friend  who  travelled  one  day  in  the  Windsor 
stage  with  a  small  gentleman  to  whom,  on  passing  Ken- 
sington Churchyard,  he  began  to  quote  with  great  fervour 
some  stanzas  of  the  Elegy ;  adding  how  extraordinary  it  was 
that  a  poet  of  such  genius  and  manly  vigour  of  mind,  should 
be  a  delicate,  timid,  effeminate  character,  "  m  fact,  sir,"  he 
continued,  "  that  Mr.  Gray,-  who  wrote  those  noble  verses, 
should  be  a  puny  insect  shivering  at  a  breeze."  The  other 
gentleman  assented,  and  they  passed  to  general  topics,  on 
which  he  proved  himself  to  be  so  well-informed,  enter- 
taining, and  vivacious,  that  Penneck's  friend  was  en- 
chanted. On  leaving  the  coach,  he  fell  into  an  enthusiastic 
description  of  his  fellow-traveller  to  the  friend  who  met 
him,  and  wound  up  by  saying,  "  Ah  !  here  he  is,  returning 
to  the  coach!  Who  can  he  be?"  "Oh!  that  is  Mr. 
Gray,  the  poet ! " 

Gray  could  be  talkative  enough  in  general  society,  if  he 
found  the  company  sympathetic.  Walpole  says  that  he 
resembled  Hume  as  a  talker,  but  was  much  better  com- 
pany. On  one  of  his  visits  to  Norton  Nicholls  at  Blundes- 
ton,  he  found  two  old  relatives  of  his  host,  people  of  the 


jx.]  BONSTETTEN.  195 

most  commonplace  type,  already  installed,  and  at  first  he 
seemed  to  consider  it  impossible  to  reconcile  himself  to 
their  presence.  But  noticing  that  Nicholls  was  grieved  at 
this,  he  immediately  changed  his  manner,  and  made  him- 
self so  agreeable  to  them  both  that  the  old  people  talked 
of  him  with  pleasure  as  long  as  they  lived.  He  would 
always  interest  himself  in  any  reference  to  farming,  or  to 
the  condition  of  the  crops,  which  bore  upon  his  botanical 
pursuits ;  one  of  his  daily  occupations,  in  his  healthier 
years,  being  the  construction  of  a  botanical  calendar.  One 
of  his  finest  sayings  was: — "To  be  employed  is  to  be 
happy  f  and  his  great  personal  aim  in  life  seems  to  have 
been  to  be  constantly  employed,  without  fatigue,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  stem  the  tide  of  constitutional  low  spirits.  The 
presence  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  such  as  Wharton 
and  Nicholls,  had  so  magnetic  an  influence  upon  him,  that 
their  memory  of  him  was  almost  uniformly  bright  and 
vivid.  Those  whom  he  loved  less,  knew  how  dejected  and 
silent  he  could  be  for  hours  and  hours.  Gibbon  regretted 
the  pertinacity  with  which  Gray  plunged  into  merely 
acquisitive  and  scholastic  study ;  the  truth  probably  is, 
that  he  had  not  the  courage  to  indulge  in  reverie,  nor  the 
physical  health  to  be  at  rest. 

The  person,  however,  who  has  preserved  the  most  exact 
account  of  Gray's  manner  of  life  during  the  last  months  of 
his  career,  is  Bonstetten.  In  November  1769  Norton 
Nicholls,  being  at  Bath,  met  in  the  Pump-Koom  there, 
among  the  mob  of  fashionable  people,  a  handsome  young 
Swiss  gentleman  of  four-and-twenty,  named  Charles  Victor 
de  Bonstetten.  He  was  the  only  son  of  the  treasurer  of 
Berne,  and  belonged  to  one  of  the  six  leading  families  of 
the  country.  He  lived  at  Nyon,  had  been  educated  at 
Lausanne,  and  was  now  in  England,  desiring  to  study  our 


196  GRAY.  [chap. 

language  and  literature,  but  having  hitherto  fallen  more 
among  fashionable  people  than  people  of  taste.  He  was 
very  enthusiastic,  romantic,  and  good-looking,  very  sweet 
and  winning  in  manner,  full  of  wit  and  spirit,  and,  when 
he  chose  to  exert  himself,  quite  irresistible.  He  had 
brought  an  introduction  to  Pitt,  but,  after  receiving  some 
courtesies,  had  slipped  away  into  the  country,  and  Nicholls 
found  him  turning  the  heads  of  all  the  young  ladies 
at  Bath.  Bonstetten  attached  himself  very  warmly  to 
Mcholls,  and  was  persuaded  by  the  latter  to  go  to  Cam- 
bridge to  attend  lectures.  That  Mcholls  thoroughly 
admired  him,  is  certain  from  the  very  earnest  letter  of 
introduction  which  he  sent  with  him  to  Gray  on  the  27th 
of  November,  1769. 

The  ebullient  young  Swiss  conquered  the  shy  and 
solitary  poet  at  sight.  "My  gaiety,  my  love  for 
English  poetry,  appeared  to  have  subdued  him," — the 
word  Bonstetten  uses  is  "subjugue," — "and  the  diffe- 
rence in  age  between  us  seemed  to  disappear  at  once." 
Gray  found  him  a  lodging  close  to  Pembroke  Hall,  at 
a  coffee-house,  and  at  once  set  himself  to  plan  out  for 
Bonstetten  a  course  of  studies.  On  the  6th  of  January, 
1770,  Bonstetten  wrote  to  Norton  Nicholls  : — "  I  am  in  a 
hurry  from  morning  till  night.  At  eight  o'clock  I  am 
roused  by  a  young  square-cap,  with  whom  I  follow  Satan 
through  chaos  and  night.  .  .  We  finish  our  travels  in  a 
copious  breakfast  of  muffins  and  tea.  Then  appear  Shake- 
speare and  old  Linnaeus,  struggling  together  as  two  ghosts 
would  do  for  a  damned  soul.  Sometimes  the  one  gets  the 
better,  sometimes  the  other.  Mr.  Gray,  whose  acquaint- 
ance is  my  greatest  debt  to  you,  is  so  good  as  to  show  me 
Macbeth,  and  all  witches,  beldames,  ghosts  and  spirits, 
whose  language  I  never  could  have  understood  without  his 


ix.]  BONSTETTEN.  197 

interpretation.  I  am  now  endeavouring  to  dress  all  these 
people  in  a  French  dress,  which  is  a  very  hard  labour." 
In  enclosing  this  letter  to  Nicholls,  Gray  adds  as  a  post- 
script : — 

I  never  saw  such  a  boy ;  our  breed  is  not  made  on  this  model. 
He  is  busy  from  morning  to  night,  has  no  other  amusement 
than  that  of  changing  one  study  for  another,  likes  nobody  that 
he  sees  here,  and  yet  wishes  to  stay  longer,  though  he  has  passed 
a  whole  fortnight  with  us  already.  His  letter  has  had  no  cor- 
rection whatever,  and  is  prettier  by  half  than  English. 

For  more  than  ten  weeks  after  the  date  of  this  letter, 
Bonstetten  remained  in  his  lodgings  at  Cambridge,  in 
daily  and  unbroken  intercourse  with  Gray.  The  remini- 
scences of  the  young  Swiss  gentleman  are  extremely 
interesting,  though  doubtless  they  require  to  be  accepted 
with  a  certain  reservation.  There  is  however  the  stamp 
of  truth  about  his  statement  that  the  poetical  genius  of 
Gray  was  by  this  time  so  completely  extinguished  that  the 
very  mention  of  his  poems  was  distasteful  to  him.  He 
would  not  permit  Bonstetten  to  talk  to  him  about  them, 
and  when  the  young  man  quoted  some  of  his  lines,  Gray 
preserved  an  obstinate  silence  like  a  sullen  child.  Some- 
times Bonstetten  said,  "  Will  you  not  answer  me  ? "  But 
no  word  would  proceed  from  the  shut  lips.  Yet  this  was 
during  the  time  when,  on  all  subjects  but  himself,  Gray 
was  conversing  with  Bonstetten  on  terms  of  the  most 
affectionate  intimacy.  For  three  months  the  young  Swiss, 
despising  all  other  society  to  be  found  at  Cambridge,  spent 
every  evening  with  Gray,  arriving  at  five  o'clock,  and  lin- 
gering till  midnight.  They  read  together  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  Dryden  and  the  other  great  English  classics,  until 
their  study  would  slip  into  sympathetic  conversation,  in 


198  GRAY.  [chap. 

which  the  last  word  was  never  spoken.  Bonstetten  poured 
out  his  confidences  to  the  old  poet,— all  his  life,  all  his 
hopes,  all  the  aspirations  and  enthusiasms  of  his  youth, 
and  Gray  received  it  all  with  profound  interest  and 
sympathy,  but  never  with  the  least  reciprocity.  To  the 
last  his  own  life's  history  was  a  closed  book  to  Bonstetten. 
Never  once  did  he  speak  of  himself.  Between  the  present 
and  past  there  seemed  to  be  a  great  gulf  fixed,  and  when 
the  warm-hearted  young  man  approached  the  subject,  he 
was  always  baffled.  He  remarks  that  there  was  a  complete 
discord  between  Gray's  humorous  intellect  and  ardent 
imagination  on  the  one  side  and  what  he  calls  a  "  misere 
de  cceur  "  on  the  other.  Bonstetten  thought  that  this  was 
owing  to  a  suppressed  sensibility,  to  the  fact  that  Gray 
never—- 

anywhere  in  the  Bun  or  rain 
Had  loved  or  been  beloved  again, 

and  that  he  felt  his  heart  to  be  frozen  at  last  under  what 
Bonstetten  calls  the  Arctic  Pole  of  Cambridge. 

This  final  friendship  of  his  life  troubled  the  poet  strangely. 
He  could  not  get  over  the  wonder  of  Bonstetten's  ardour 
and  vitality:  "our  breed  is  not  made  on  this  model." 
His  letters  to  Norton  Nicholls  are  like  the  letters  of  an 
anxious  parent.  "  He  gives  me,"  he  says  on  the  20th  of 
March,  1770,  "  too  much  pleasure,  and  at  least  an  equal 
share  of  inquietude.  You  do  not  understand  him  as  well 
as  I  do,  but  I  leave  my  meaning  imperfect,  till  we  meet. 
I  have  never  met  with  so  extraordinary  a  person.  God 
bless  him  !  I  am  unable  to  talk  to  you  about  anything 
else,  I  think."  Late  in  the  month  of  March,  Bonstetten 
tore  himself  away  from  Cambridge ;  his  father  had  long 
been  insisting  that  he  must  return  to  Nyon.  Gray  went 
up  to  London  with  him,  showed  him  some  of  the  sights, 


ix.]  *  BONSTETTEN.  199 

among  others  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  who  came  puffing 
down  the  Strand,  unconscious  of  the  two  strangers  who 
paused  on  their  way  to  observe  him.  "  Look,  look,  Bon- 
stetten  ! "  said  Gray,  "  the  great  Bear  !  There  goes  Ursa 
Major ! "  On  the  23rd  of  March  Gray  lent  him  20Z.  and 
packed  his  friend  into  the  Dover  machine  at  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  returning  very  sadly  to  Cambridge,  whence 
he  wrote  to  Mcholls :— "  Here  am  I  again  to  pass  my 
solitary  evenings,  which  hung  much  lighter  on  my  hands 
before  I  knew  him*.  This  is  your  fault !  Pray  let  the  next 
you  send  me  be  halt  and  blind,  dull,  unapprehensive  and 
wrong-headed.  For  this — as  Lady  Constance  says — was 
ever  such  a  gracious  creature  born !  and  yet — but  no 
matter !  .  .  .  .  This  place  never  appeared  so  horrible  to 
me  as  it  does  now.  Could  you  not  come  for  a  week  or 
a  fortnight?  It  would  be  sunshine  to  me  in  a  dark 
night." 

Bonstetten  had  departed  with  every  vow  and  circum- 
stance of  friendship,  and  had  obliged  Gray  to  promise  that 
he  would  visit  him  the  next  summer  in  Switzerland.  He 
wrote  to  Gray  from  Abbeville,  and  then  there  fell  upon  his 
correspondence  one  of  those  silences  so  easy  to  the  volatile 
and  youthful.  Gray  in  the  meanwhile  was  possessed  by  a 
weak  restlessness  of  mind  that  made  him  almost  ill,  and 
early  in  April,  since  Nicholls  could  not  come  to  Cam- 
bridge, he  himself  hastened  to  Blundeston,  spending  a  few 
days  with  Palgrave  ("  Old  Pa  ")  on  the  way.  He  made 
one  excuse  after  another  for  avoiding  Cambridge,  to  which 
he  did  not  return,  except  for  a  week  or  two,  until  the  end 
of  the  year.  He  agreed  with  Norton  Nicholls  that  they 
should  go  together  to  Switzerland  in  the  summer  of  1771, 
but  entreated  him  not  to  vex  him  by  referring  to  this  in 
any  way  till  the  time  came  for  starting.     By  and  by  letters 


200  GRAY.  [chap. 

came  from  Bonstetten,  with  "  bad  excuses  for  not  writing 
oftener,"  and  in  May  Gray  was  happier,  travelling  to 
Aston  to  be  with  Mason,  driving  along  the  roads  with 
trees  blooming  and  nightingales  singing  all  around  him. 

His  only  literary  exercise  during  this  year  1770  seems  to 
have  been  filling  an  interleaved  copy  of  the  works  of  Lin- 
naeus with  notes.  For  the  last  eight  or  nine  years  natural 
history  had  been  his  favourite  study  j  he  said  that  it  was 
a  singular  felicity  to  him  to  be  engaged  in  this  pursuit, 
and  it  often  took  him  out  into  the  fields  when  nothing 
else  would.  He  interleaved  a  copy  of  Hudson's  Flora 
Anglica,  and  filled  it  with  notes  :  and  was  on  a  level  with 
all  that  had  been  done  up  to  his  time  in  zoology  and 
botany.  Some  of  his  notes  and  observations  were  after- 
wards made  use  of  by  Pennant,  with  warm  acknowledg- 
ment. He  returned  from  Aston  towards  the  end  of  June, 
and  prepared  at  once  to  start  with  Norton  Nicholls 
for  a  summer  tour.  He  directed  Nicholls  to  meet  him 
at  the  sign  of  the  Wheat  Sheaf,  five  miles  beyond 
Huntingdon,  about  the  3rd  of  July.  Unfortunately 
there  exists  no  journal  to  commemorate  this,  the  last 
of  Gray's  tours,  which  seems  to  have  occupied  more 
than  two  months.  The  friends  drove  across  the  midland 
counties  into  Worcestershire,  descended  the  Severn 
to  Gloucester,  and  then  made  their  way  to  Malvern 
Wells,  where  they  stayed  a  week,  because  Nicholls  found 
some  of  his  acquaintance  there.  Gray  must  have  been 
particularly  well,  for  he  ascended  the  Herefordshire 
Beacon,  and  enjoyed  the  unrivalled  view  from  its  summit. 
He  was  much  vexed,  however,  with  the  fashionable  society 
at  the  long  table  of  the  inn,  and  maintained  silence  at 
dinner.  When  Nicholls  gently  rallied  him  on  this,  he 
said  that  long  retirement  in  the  university  had  destroyed 


ix.]  GRAY.  201 

the  versatility  of  his  mind.  At  Malvern  he  received  a 
copy  of  Goldsmith's  Deserted  Village,  which  had  just  been 
published ;  he  asked  Norton  Nicholls  to  read  it  aloud  to 
him,  listened  to  it  with  fixed  attention,  and  exclaimed 
before  they  had  proceeded  far,  "  This  man  is  a  poet." 
From  Malvern  they  went  on  to  Ross  in  Herefordshire, 
and  descended  the  Wye  to  Chepstow,  a  distance  of  forty 
miles,  m  a  boat,  "surrounded,"  says  Gray,  "with  ever  new 
delights."  From  this  point  they  went  on  to  Abergavenny 
and  South  Wales,  returning  by  Oxford,  where  they  spent 
two  agreeable  days.  During  this  tour  Gray  turned  aside 
to  visit  Leasowes,  where  Shenstone  had  lived  and  died 
in  1763.  Gray  had  never  admired  Shenstone's  artificial 
grace,  and  had  been  vexed  by  some  allusions  in  his 
posthumously  published  letters,  and  it  was  probably  more 
to  see  the  famous  "  Arcadian  greens  rural "  than  to  do 
homage  to  a  poetic  memory  that  he  loitered  at  Halesowen. 
He  returned  in  a  very  fair  state  of  health,  as  was  customary 
after  his  summer  holidays ;  but  the  good  effects  unfor- 
tunately passed  away  unusually  soon.  He  had  a  feverish 
attack  in  September,  but  cured  it  with  sage-tea,  his 
favourite  nostrum.  Mcholls  came  up  to  town  to  see  him, 
and  travelled  with  him  as  far  as  Cambridge ;  but  Gray's  now 
invincible  dislike  to  this  place  seems  to  have  made  him 
really  ill,  and  for  the  next  two  months  he  only  went  out- 
side the  walls  of  the  college  once.  His  aunt,  Mrs.  Oliffe, 
now  ninety  years  of  age,  had  come  up  to  Cambridge,  and 
appears  to  have  lodged  close  to  Gray  inside  Pembroke 
College,  where  he  was  now  allowed  to  do  whatever  he 
chose.  She  was  helplessly  bedridden,  but  as  intractable 
a  daughter  of  the  Dragon  of  Wantley  as  ever.  The  other 
Pembroke  nonogenarian,Dr.  Roger  Long,  died  on  the  16th 
of  December  1770,  and  Gray's  friend  James  Brown  sue- 


202  GEAY.  [chap. 

ceeded   him    in    the    Mastership   without    any    conten- 
tion. 

Early  in  1771,  Mrs.  Oliffe  died,  leaving  her  entire  for- 
tune, such  as  it  was,  to  Gray,  and  none  of  it  to  her  nieces 
the  Antrobuses,  who  had  nursed  her  in  her  illness.  These 
women  had  been  brought  to  Cambridge  by  Gray,  and  had 
been  so  comfortably  settled  by  him  in  situations,  that  in 
one  of  his  letters  he  playfully  dreads  that  all  his  "friends 
will  shudder  at  the  name  of  Antrobus.  All  through  this 
spring  Gray  seems  to  have  been  gradually  sinking  in 
strength  and  spirits,  though  none  of  his  friends  appear  to 
have  been  alarmed  about  it.  To  Norton  Mcholls' 
entreaties  that  he  would  go  to  visit  Bonstetten  with  him, 
as  to  the  young  Swiss  gentleman's  own  invitations,  he 
answered  with  a  sad  intimation  that  his  health  was  not 
equal  to  so  much  exertion. 

Mcholls  came  up  to  town  to  say  farewell  to  him 
in  the  middle  of  June,  having  at  last  been  persuaded 
that  it  was  useless  to  wait  for  Gray.  The  poet  was 
in  his  old  rooms  in  Jermyn  Street  and  there  they  parted 
for  the  last  time.  Before  Mcholls  took  leave  of  him, 
Gray  said,  very  earnestly,  "I  have  one  thing  to  beg 
of  you,  which  you  must  not  refuse."  Mcholls  replied, 
"  You  know  you  have  only  to  command ;  what  is  it  1 " 
"  Do  not  go  to  visit  Voltaire  ;  no  one  knows  the  mischief 
that  man  will  do."  Mcholls  said,  "  Certainly  I  will  not; 
but  what  could  a  visit  from  me  signify  ? "  "  Every  tribute 
to  such  a  man  signifies."  A  little  before  this  Gray  had 
rejected  polite  overtures  from  Voltaire,  who  was  a  great 
admirer  of  the  Elegy  ;  but  it  was  not  that  he  was  dead  to 
the  charms  of  the  great  Frenchman.  He  paid  a  full  tribute 
of  admiration  to  his  genius,  delighted  in  his  wit,  enjoyed 
his  histories,  and  regarded  his  tragedies  as  next  in  rank 


ix.]  BONSTETTEN.  203 

to  those  of  Shakespeare ;  but  he  hated  him,  as  he  hated 
Hume,  because,  as  he  said,  he  thought  him  an  enemy  to 
religion.  He  tried  to  persuade  himself  that  Beattie  had 
mastered  Voltaire  in  argument.  Gray  had  a  similar  dis- 
like to  Shaftesbury,  and  was,  throughout  his  career,  though 
in  a  very  unassuming  way,  a  sincere  believer  in  Chris- 
tianity. "We  find  him  exhorting  Dr.  Wharton  not  to  omit 
the  use  of  family  prayer,  and  this  although  he  had  a  horror 
of  anything  like  "  methodism  "  or  religious  display. 

Gray's  last  letter  to  Bonstetten  may  be  given  as  an 
example  of  his  correspondence  with  that  gentleman,  as 
long  after  preserved  and  published  by  Miss  Plumptre  : — 

I  am  returned,  my  dear  Bonstetten,  from  the  little  journey  I 
made  into  Suffolk,  without  answering  the  end  proposed.  The 
thought  that  you  might  have  been  with  me  there,  has  embittered 
all  my  hours.  Your  letter  has  made  me  happy,  as  happy  as  so 
gloomy,  so  solitary  a  being  as  I  am,  is  capable  of  being  made. 
I  know,  and  have  too  often  felt,  the  disadvantages  I  lay  myself 
under ;  how  much  I  hurt  the  little  interest  I  have  in  you  by  this 
air  of  sadness  so  contrary  to  your  nature  and  present  enjoy- 
ments :  but  sure  you  will  forgive,  though  you  cannot  sympathize 
with  me.  It  is  impossible  with  me  to  dissemble  with  you; 
such  as  I  am  I  expose  my  heart  to  your  view,  nor  wish  to  con- 
ceal a  single  thought  from  your  penetrating  eyes.  All  that  you 
say  to  me,  especially  on  the  subject  of  Switzerland,  is  infinitely 
acceptable.  It  feels  too  pleasing  ever  to  be  fulfilled,  and  as 
often  as  I  read  over  your  truly  kind  letter,  written  long  since 
from  London,  I  stop  at  these  words  :  "  La  mort  qui  peut  glacer 
nos  bras  avant  qu'ils  soient  entrelaces." 

He  made  a  struggle  to  release  himself  from  this  atra- 
bilious mood.  He  reflected  on  the  business  which  he  had 
so  long  neglected,  and  determined  to  try  again  to  find 
energy  to'  lecture.     He  drew  up  three  schemes  for  regu- 


204  GRAY.  [chap. 

lating  the  studies  of  private  pupils,  and  laid  them  before 
the  Duke  of  Grafton.  But  these  plans,  as  was  usual  with 
Gray,  never  came  to  execution,  and  when  he  was  at  Aston 
in  1770,  he  told  Mason  that  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  his  duty  to  resign  the  professorship,  since  it  was 
out  of  his  power  to  do  any  real  service  in  it.  Mason 
strongly  dissuaded  him  from  such  a  step,  and  encouraged 
him  to  think  that  even  yet  he  would  be  able  to  make  a 
beginning  of  his  lectures.  The  Exordium  of  his  proposed 
inauguration  speech  was  all  that  was  found  at  his  death  to 
account  for  so  many  efforts  and  intentions. 

In  the  latter  part  of  May  1771  Gray  went  up  to  London, 
to  his  lodgings  in  Jermyn  Street,  where,  as  has  been  already 
mentioned,  he  received  the  farewell  visit  from  Mcholls. 
He  was  profoundly  wretched ;  writing  to  Wharton  he 
said,  "  Till  this  year  I  hardly  knew  what  mechanical  low 
spirits  were :  but  now  I  even  tremble  at  an  East  wind." 
His  cough  was  incurable,  the  neuralgic  pains  in  his  head 
were  chronic.  William  Kobinson,  in  describing  his  last 
interview  with  him,  said  that  Gray  talked  of  his  own 
career  as  a  poet,  lamented  that  he  had  done  so  little,  and 
began  at  last,  in  a  repining  tone,  to  complain  that  he  had 
lost  his  health  just  when  he  had  become  easy  in  his  cir- 
cumstances j  but  on  that  he  checked  himself,  saying  that 
it  was  wrong  to  rail  against  Providence.  As  he  grew 
worse  and  worse,  he  placed  himself  under  a  physician, 
Dr.  Gisborne,  who  ordered  him  to  leave  Bloomsbury, 
and  try  a  clearer  air  at  Kensington.  Probably  the  last 
call  he  ever  paid  was  on  Walpole  ;  for  hearing  that  his 
old  friend  was  about  to  set  out  for  Paris,  Gray  visited 
him.  "  He  complained  of  being  ill,"  says  Walpole,  "  and 
talked  of  the  gout  in  his  stomach,  but  I  expected  his  death 
no  more  than  my  own."     During  the  month  of  June  he 


ix.]  DEATH.  205 

received  the  MS.  of  Gilpin's  Tour  down  the  Wye,  and  en- 
riched this  work,  which  was  not  published  until  1782, 
with  his  notes,  being  reminiscences  of  his  journey  of  the 
preceding  year. 

On  the  22nd  of  July,  finding  himself  alone  in  London, 
and  overwhelmed  with  dejection  and  the  shadow  of  death, 
he  came  back  to  Cambridge.  It  was  his  intention  to  rest 
there  a  day  or  two,  and  then  to  proceed  to  Old  Park, 
where  the  Whartons  were  ready  to  receive  him.  He  put 
himself  under  the  treatment  of  his  physician,  Dr.  Robert 
Glynn,  who  had  been  the  author  of  a  successful  Seatonian 
poem,  and  who  dabbled  in  literature.  This  Dr.  Glynn 
was  conspicuous  for  his  gold-headed  cane,  scarlet  coat, 
three-cornered  hat,  and  resounding  pattens  for  thirty  years 
after  Gray's  death,  and  retains  a  niche  in  local  history  as 
the  last  functionary  of  the  University  who  was  buried  by 
torchlight.  Dr.  Glynn  was  not  at  all  anxious  about  Gray's 
condition,  but  on  Wednesday  the  24th,  the  poet  was  so 
languid,  that  his  friend  James  Brown  wrote  for  him  to 
Dr.  Wharton,  to  warn  him  that  though  Gray  did  not  give 
over  the  hopes  of  taking  his  journey  to  Old  Park,  he  was 
very  low  and  feverish,  and  could  hardly  start  immediately. 
That  very  night,  while  at  dinner  in  the  College  Hall  at 
Pembroke,  Gray  felt  a  sudden  nausea,  which  obliged  him 
to  go  hurriedly  to  his  own  room.  He  lay  down,  but  he 
became  so  violently  and  constantly  sick,  that  he  sent  his 
servant  to  fetch  in  Dr.  Glynn,  who  was  puzzled  at  the 
symptoms,  but  believed  that  there  was  no  cause  for  alarm. 
Gray  grew  worse,  however,  for  the  gout  had  reached  the 
stomach ;  Dr.  Glynn  became  alarmed,  and  sent  for  Russell 
Plumptre,  the  Regius  Professor  of  Physic.  The  old  doctor 
was  in  bed,  and  refused  to  get  up,  for  which  he  was  after- 
wards severely  blamed.     No  skill,  however,  could  have 


206  GRAY.  [chap. 

saved  Gray.  He  got  through  the  25th  pretty  well,  and 
slept  tolerably  that  night,  but  after  taking  some  asses*- 
milk  on  the  morning  of  the  26  th,  the  spasms  in  the 
stomach  returned  again.  Dr.  Brown  scarcely  left  him 
after  the  first  attack,  and  wrote  to  all  his  principal  friends 
from  the  side  of  his  bed.  On  this  day,  Thursday,  the 
Master  could  still  hope  "  that  we  shall  see  him  well  again 
in  a  short  time."  On  Sunday,  the  29th,  Gray  was  taken 
with  a  strong  convulsive  fit,  and  these  recurred  until  he 
died.  He  retained  his  senses  almost  to  the  last.  Stone- 
hewer  and  Dr.  Gisborne  arrived  from  London  on  the  30th 
and  took  leave  of  their  dying  friend.  His  language  be- 
came less  and  less  coherent,  and  he  was  not  clearly  able 
to  explain  to  Brown,  without  a  great  effort,  where  his  will 
would  be  found.  He  seemed  perfectly  sensible  of  his 
condition,  but  expressed  no  concern  at  the  thought  of 
leaving  the  world.  Towards  the  end  he  did  not  suffer  at 
all,  but  lay  in  a  sort  of  torpor,  out  of  which  he  woke  to 
call  for  his  niece,  Miss  Mary  Antrobus.  She  took  his 
hand,  and  he  said  to  her,  in  a  clear  voice,  "  Molly,  I  shall 
die  ! "  He  lay  quietly  after  this,  without  attempting  to 
speak,  and  ceased  to  breathe  about  eleven  o'clock,  an  hour 
before  midnight  on  the  30th  of  July,  1771,  aged  fifty-four 
years,  seven  months,  and  four  days. 

James  Brown  found,  in  the  spot  which  Gray  had  indi- 
cated, his  will.  It  was  dated  July  2,  '1770,  and  must 
therefore  have  been  drawn  up  just  before  he  started  on  his 
tour  through  the  Western  Counties.  Mason  and  Brown 
were  named  his  executors.  He  left  his  property  divided 
among  a  great  number  of  relations  and  friends,  reserving 
the  largest  portions  for  his  niece  Miss  Mary  Antrobus,  and 
her  sister,  Mrs.  Dorothy  Comyns,  both  of  whom  were  resi- 
dents at  Cambridge,  and  who  had  probably  looked  to  his 


ix.]  DEATH.  207 

comfort  of  late  years  as  he  had  considered  their  prospects 
in  earlier  life.  The  faithful  Stephen  Hempstead  was  not 
forgotten,  while  Mason  and  Brown  were  left  residuary- 
legatees.  On  Brown  fell  the  whole  burden  of  attending 
to  the  funeral,  for  Mason  could  not  be  found ;  he  had 
taken  a  holiday,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  whole  matter 
until  his  letters  reached  him,  in  a  cluster,  at  Bridlington 
Quay,  about  the  7  th  of  August. 

By  this  time  Gray  was  buried ;  Brown  took  the  body, 
in  a  coffin  of  seasoned  oak,  to  London  and  thence  to 
Stoke,  where,  on  the  6th  of  August,  it  was  deposited 
in  the  vault  which  contained  that  of  Gray's  mother. 
The  mourners  were  Miss  Antrobus,  her  sister's  husband, 
Mr.  Comyns,  a  shopkeeper  at  Cambridge,  "a  young 
gentleman  of  Christ's  College,  with  whom  Mr.  Gray 
was  very  intimate,"  and  Brown  himself;  these  persons 
followed  the  hearse  in  a  mourning  coach.  The  sum  of 
ten  pounds  was,  at  the  poet's  express  wish,  distributed 
among  certain  "  honest  and  industrious  poor  persons  in  the 
parish  "  of  Stoke  Pogis.  As  soon  as  Mason  heard  the  news, 
he  crossed  the  Humber,  and  reached  Cambridge  the  next 
day ;  Brown  was  a  very  cautious  and  punctilious  man,  and 
no  sooner  had  he  returned  to  Cambridge  than  he  insisted 
that  Mason  should  go  up  to  town  with  him  and  prove  the 
will.  Mason,  who  throughout  showed  a  characteristic 
callousness,  grumbled  but  agreed,  and  on  the  12th  of 
August  the  will  was  proved  in  London. 

The  executors  returned  immediately  to  Cambridge, 
delivered  up  the  plate,  jewellery,  linen,  and  furniture 
to  the  Antrobuses,  and  then  Mason  packed  up  the 
books  and  papers  to  be  removed  to  his  rooms  at 
York.  Once  settled  there,  on  the  18th,  he  began 
to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  a  literary  bereavement.     "  Come," 


208  GRAY.  [chap. 

he  says  to  Dr.  Wharton,  "  come,  I  beseech  you,  and 
condole  with  me  on  our  mutual,  our  irreparable  loss. 
The  great  charge  which  his  dear  friendship  has  laid  upon 
me,  I  feel  myself  unable  to  execute,  without  the  advice 
and  assistance  of  his  best  friends ;  you  are  among  the  first 
of  these."  It  will  hardly  be  believed  that  the  "great 
charge "  so  pompously  referred  to  here  is  contained  in 
these  exceedingly  simple  words  of  Gray  : — "  I  give  to  the 
Reverend  William  Mason,  precentor  of  York,  all  my 
books,  manuscripts,  coins,  music  printed  or  written,  and 
papers  of  all  kinds,  to  preserve  or  destroy  at  his  own  dis- 
cretion." There  is  no  shadow  of  doubt  that  the  ambitious 
and  worldly  Mason  saw  here  an  opportunity  of  achieving 
a  great  literary  success,  and  that  he  lost  no  time  in  posing 
as  Gray's  representative  and  confidant.  A  few  people 
resisted  his  pretensions,  such  as  Robinson  and  Nicholls, 
but  they  were  not  writers,  and  Mason  revenged  himself 
by  ignoring  them.  Nor  did  he  take  the  slightest  notice  of 
Bonstetten. 

James  Brown,  le  petit  bon  homme  with  the  warm  heart, 
was  kinder  and  less  ambitious.  He  wrote  thoughtful 
letters  to  every  one,  and  particularly  to  the  three  friends  in 
exile,  to  Horace  Walpole,  Nicholls,  and  Bonstetten.  Wal- 
pole  was  struck  cold  in  the  midst  of  his  frivolities,  as  if  he 
had  suffered  in  his  own  person  a  touch  of  paralysis ;  in  his 
letters  he  seems  to  whimper  and  shiver,  as  much  with 
apprehension  as  with  sorrow.  Norton  Nicholls  gave  a  cry 
of  grief,  and  very  characteristically  wrote  instantly  to  his 
mother  lest  she,  knowing  his  love  for  Gray,  should  fear 
that  the  shock  would  make  him  ill.  From  this  exquisite 
letter  we  must  cite  some  lines  : — 

I  only  write  now  lest  you  should  be  apprehensive  on  my 


ix.]  DEATH.  209 

account  since  the  death  of  my  dear  friend.  Yesterday's  post 
brought  me  the  fatal  news,  in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Brown,  that 
Mr.  Gray  (all  that  was  most  dear  to  me  in  this  world  except 
yourself)  died  in  the  night  about  eleven  o'clock,  between  the 
30th  and  31st  of  July.  .  .  .  You  need  not  be  alarmed  for  me, 
I  am  well,  and  not  subject  to  emotions  vrolent  enough  to  en- 
danger my  health,  and  besides  with  good  kind  people  who  pity 
me  and  can  feel  themselves.  Afflicted  you  may  be  sure  I  am  ! 
You  who  know  I  considered  Mr.  Gray  as  a  second  parent,  that 
I  thought  only  of  him,  built  all  my  happiness  on  him,  talked  of 
him  for  ever,  wished  him  with  me  whenever  I  partook  of  any 
pleasure,  and  flew  to  him  for  refuge  whenever  I  felt  any  un- 
easiness ;  to  whom  now  shall  I  talk  of  all  I  have  seen  here  ? 
Who  will  teach  me  to  read,  to  think,  to  feel  ?  I  protest  to  you, 
that  whatever  I  did  or  thought  had  a  reference  to  him, — "  Mr. 
Gray  will  be  pleased  with  this  when  I  tell  him.  I  must  ask 
Mr.  Gray  what  he  thinks  of  such  a  person  or  thing.  He  would 
like  such  a  person  or  dislike  such  another."  If  I  met  with  any 
chagrins,  I  comforted  myself  that  I  had  a  treasure  at  home ;  if 
all  the  world  had  despised  and  hated  me,  I  should  have  thought 
myself  perfectly  recompensed  in  his  friendship.  Now  remains 
only  one  loss  more ;  if  I  lose  you,  I  am  left  alone  in  the  world. 
At  present  I  feel  1  have  lost  half  of  myself.  Let  me  hear  that 
you  are  well. 

Thirty-four  years  afterwards  the  hand  which  penned 
these  unaffected  lines  wrote  down  those  reminiscences,  alas ! 
too  brief,  which  constitute  the  most  valuable  impressions 
of  Gray  that  we  possess.  It  is  impossible  not  to  regret 
that  this  sincere  and  tender  friend  did  not  undertake  that 
labour  of  biography  which  fell  into  more  skilled,  but 
coarser  hands  than  his.  Yet  it  is  no  little  matter  to 
possess  this  first  outflow  of  grief  and  affection.  It 
assures  us  that,  with  all  his  melancholy  and  self- 
torture,  the  great  spirit  of  Gray  was  not  without  its 
lively   consolations,     and    that    he    gained    of    Heaven 


210  GRAY.  [ch.  ix. 

the  boon  for  which  he  had  prayed,  a  friend  of  friends. 
Mcholls,  Bonstetten,  Kobinson,  Wharton,  Stonehewer, 
and  Brown  were  undistinguished  names  of  unheroic 
men  who  are  interesting  to  posterity  only  because,  with 
that  unselfish  care  which  only  a  great  character  and  sweet- 
ness of  soul  have  power  to  rouse,  they  loved,  honoured, 
cherished  this  silent  and  melancholy  anchorite.  Dearer 
friends,  better  and  more  devoted  companions  through  a 
slow  and  unexhilarating  career,  no  man  famous  in  literature 
has  possessed,  and  we  feel  that  not  to  recognize  this  mag- 
netic power  of  attracting  good  souls  around  him  would  be 
to  lose  sight  of  Gray's  peculiar  and  signal  charm.  It  is 
true  that,  like  the  moon,  he  was  "dark  to  them,  and 
silent ;"  that  he  received,  and  lacked  the  power  to  give ; 
they  do  not  seem  to  have  required  from  him  the  impossible, 
they  accepted  his  sympathy,  and  rejoiced  in  his  inexpres- 
sive affection ;  and  when  he  was  taken  from  them,  they 
regarded  his  memory  as  fanatics  regard  the  sayings  and 
doings  of  the  founder  of  their  faith.  Gray  "  never  spoke 
out,"  Brown  said  ;  he  lived,  more  even  than  the  rest  of  us, 
in  an  involuntary  isolation,  a  pathetic  type  of  the  solitude 
of  the  soul. 

Yes !  in  the  sea  of  life  enisled, 

With  echoing  straits  between  us  thrown, 

Dotting  the  shoreless  watery  wild, 

We  mortal  myriads  live  alone. 

The  islands  feel  the  enclasping  flow, 

And  then  their  endless  bounds  they  know. 


CHAPTER  X. 


POSTHUMOUS. 


The  earliest  tribute  to  the  mind  and  character  of  Gray 
was  published  in  1772  in  the  March  number  of  a  rather 
dingy  periodical,  issued  under  Dr.  Johnson's  protection, 
and  entitled  the  London  Magazine.  This  was  written  in 
the  form  of  a  letter  to  Boswell  by  a  man  who  had  little 
sympathy  with  Gray  as  a  poet  or  as  a  wit,  but  was  well 
fitted  to  comprehend  him  as  a  scholar,  the  Reverend 
William  J.  Temple,  vicar  of  St.  Gluvias.  This  gentleman, 
who  had  been  a  fellow  of  Trinity  Hall  during  Gray's  resi- 
dence in  Cambridge,  and  who  is  frequently  mentioned  in 
the  poet's  later  letters,  was  almost  the  only  existing  link 
between  the  circles  ruled  respectively  by  Gray  and  Samuel 
Johnson,  Cole  being  perhaps  the  one  other  person  known  to 
both  these  mutually  repellent  individuals.  Temple's  contri- 
bution to  the  London  Magazine  is  styled  "  A  Sketch  of  the 
Character  of  the  Celebrated  Poet  Mr.  Gray,"  and  is  ushered 
in  by  the  editor  with  some  perfunctory  compliments  to  the 
poems.  But  Temple's  own  remarks  are  very  valuable,  and 
may  be  reprinted  here,  especially  as  the  careful  Mitford 
and  every  succeeding  writer  seem  to  have  been  content  to 
quote  them  from  Johnson's  inaccurate  transcript : — 

Perhaps  Mr.  Gray  was  the  most  learned  man  in  Europe :  he 
was  equally  acquainted  with  the  elegant  and  profound  parts  of 
Science,  and  not  superficially,  but  thoroughly.     He  knew  every 


212  GRAY.  [chap. 

branch  of  history,  both  natural  and  civil;  had  read  all  the 
original  historians  of  England,  France,  and  Italy ;  and  was  a 
great  antiquarian.  Criticism,  metaphysics,  morals,  politics, 
made  a  principal  part  of  his  plan  of  study.  Voyages  and  travels 
of  all  sorts  were  his  favourite  amusement :  and  he  had  a  fine 
taste  in  painting,  prints,  architecture,  and  gardening.  With  such 
a  fund  of  knowledge,  his  conversation  must  have  been  equally 
instructing  and  entertaining.  But  he  was  also  a  good  man,  a 
well-bred  man,  a  man  of  virtue  and  humanity.  There  is  no  cha- 
racter without  some  speck,  some  imperfection ;  and  I  think  the 
greatest  defect  in  his,  was  an  affectation  in  delicacy  or  rather 
effeminacy,  and  a  visible  fastidiousness  or  contempt  and  disdain 
of  his  inferiors  in  science.  He  also  had  in  some  degree  that 
weakness  which  disgusted  Voltaire  so  much  in  Mr.  Congreve. 
Though  he  seemed  to  value  others  chiefly  according  to  the  pro- 
gress they  had  made  in  knowledge,  yet  he  could  not  bear  to  be 
considered  himself  merely  as  a  man  of  letters :  and  though  with- 
out birth,  or  fortune,  or  station,  his  desire  was  to  be  looked 
upon  as  a  private  gentleman,  who  read  for  his  amusement." 


Against  the  charge  of  priggishness  which  seems  to  be 
contained  in  these  last  lines,  we  may  place  Norton 
Nicholls'  anecdote,  that  having  in  the  early  part  of  their 
acquaintance  remarked  that  some  person  was  "  a  clever 
man,"  he  was  cut  short  by  Gray,  who  said,  "  Tell  me  if 
he  is  good  for  anything."  Another  saying  of  his,  that 
genius  and  the  highest  acquirements  of  science  were  as 
nothing  compared  with  "  that  exercise  of  right  reason 
which  Plato  called  virtue,"  is  equally  distinct  as  evidence 
that  he  did  not  place  knowledge  above  conduct.  But  the 
earlier  part  of  Temple's  article,  which  regards  Gray's  learn- 
ing and  acquisitions  of  every  sort,  is  of  great  value. 
Another  of  the  poet's  contemporaries,  Robert  Potter,  the 
translator  of  iEschylus,  and  one  of  the  foremost  scholars  of 
the  time,  followed  with  a  similar  statement.     "  Mr.  Gray 


x.]  GRAY.  213 

was  perhaps  the  most  learned  man  of  the  age,  but  his 
mind  never  contracted  the  rust  of  pedantry.  He  had  too 
good  an  understanding  to  neglect  that  urbanity  which 
renders  society  pleasing :  his  conversation  was  instructing, 
elegant,  and  agreeable.  Superior  knowledge,  an  exquisite 
taste  in  the  fine  arts,  and,  above  all,  purity  of  morals,  and 
an  unaffected  reverence  for  religion,  made  this  excellent 
person  an  ornament  to  society,  and  an  honour  to  human 
nature." 

Mason  lost  no  time  in  giving  out  that  he  was  collecting 
materials  for  a  Life  of  Gray.  His  first  literary  act  was  to 
print  for  private  circulation  in  1772  the  opening  book  of  his 
didactic  poem  The  English  Garden,  which  he  had  written 
as  early  as  1767,  but  which  Gray  had  never  allowed  him 
to  print,  speaking  freely  of  it  as  being  nonsense.  But 
Mason  loved  the  children  of  his  brain,  and  could  not  sup- 
port the  idea  that  one  of  them  should  be  withheld  from 
the  world.  "With  great  naivete,  he  attempted  to  argue 
the  matter  with  the  shade  of  his  great  friend  in  a  third 
book  which  he  added  in  1772. 

Clos'd  is  that  curious  ear,  by  Death's  cold  hand, 
That  mark'd  each  error  of  my  careless  strain 
With  kind  severity ;  to  whom  my  Muse 
Still  lov'd  to  whisper  what  she  meant  to  sing 
In  louder  accent ;  to  whose  taste  supreme 
She  first  and  last  appealed, 

but  still  the  departed  friend  may  be  invoked  by  the  Muse, 

and  still,  by  Fancy  sooth'd, 
Fain  would  she  hope  her  Gray  attends  the  call. 

Mason  then  refers,  in  the  flat,  particular  manner  native  to 
eighteenth  century  elegy,  to  the  urn  and  bust  and  sculp- 
tured lyre  which  he  had  placed  to  the  memory  of  Gray  in 


214  GRAY.  [chap. 

a  rustic  alcove  in  the  garden  at  Aston,  and  then  he  ap- 
proaches the  awkward  circumstance  that  Gray  considered 
The  English  Garden  trash  : — 

Oft,  "  smiling  as  in  scorn,"  oft  would  he  cry, 

"  Why  waste  thy  numbers  on  a  trivial  art 

That  ill  can  mimic  even  the  humblest  charms 

Of  all-majestic  Nature  ?  "  at  the  word 

His  eye  would  glisten,  and  his  accents  glow 

With  all  the  Poet's  frenzy ;   "  Sovereign  Queen ! 

Behold,  and  tremble,  while  thou  viewest  her  State 

Thron'd  on  the  heights  of  Skiddaw  :  trace  her  march 

Amid  the  purple  crags  of  Borrowdale. 

.      .     .     Will  thy  boldest  song 
E'er  brace  the  sinews  of  enervate  art 
To  such  dread  daring  ?     Will  it  e'en  direct 
Her  hand  to  emulate  those  softer  charms 
That  deck  the  banks  of  Dove,  or  call  to  birth 
The  bare  romantic  crags,"  &c. 

It  seems  highly  probable  that,  stripped  of  the  charms  of 
blank  verse,  this  is  precisely  what  Gray  was  constantly 
saying  to  Mason,  who  greatly  preferred  artificial  cascades 
and  myrtle  grots  to  all  the  mountains  in  Christendom. 
On  the  fly-leaf  of  this  private  edition  of  The  English 
Garden  in  1772  appeared  the  first  general  announcement 
of  the  coming  biography. 

The  work  progressed  very  slowly.  From  the  family  of 
West,  who  had  now  been  dead  thirty  years,  Mason  was 
fortunate  enough  to  secure  a  number  of  valuable  letters, 
but  it  was  difficult  to  fill  up  the  hiatus  between  the  close 
of  this  correspondence  and  the  beginning  of  Mason's  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  Gray.  Wharton  and  Horace 
Walpole  came  very  kindly  to  his  aid,  and  he  was  able  to 
collect  a  considerable  amount  of  material.  It  is  dis- 
tressing to  think  of  the  mass  of  papers,  letters,  verses, 


x.]  POSTHUMOUS.  215 

and  other  documents  which  Mason  possessed,  and  of 
the  comparatively  small  use  which  he  made  of  them. 
He  conceived  the  happy  notion,  which  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  thought  of  by  any  previous  writer,  of 
allowing  Gray  to  tell  his  own  story  by  means  of  his 
letters ;  but  he  vitiated  the  evidence  so  put  before  the 
world  by  tampering  grossly  with  the  correspondence. 
He  confessed  to  Norton  Mcholls,-  who  was  angry  at 
this,  that  "  much  liberty  was  taken  in  transposing  parts 
of  the  letters,"  but  he  did  not  go  on  to  mention 
that  he  allowed  himself  to  interpolate  and  erase 
passages,  to  conceal  proper  names,  to  mutilate  the  original 
MSS.,  and  Jo  alter  dates  and  opinions.  He  was  very 
anxious  that  what  he  called  his  "  fidelity  "  should  not  "  be 
impeached  "  to  the  public  and  the  critics,  but  declared 
that  he  had  only  acted  for  the  honour  of  Gray  himself. 
It  is  probable  that  in  his  foolish  heart  Mason  really  did 
consider  that  he  was  respecting  Gray  in  thus  brushing  his 
clothes  and  washing  his  hands  for  him  before  allowing  the 
world  to  see  him.  He  thought  that  a  ruffled  wig  or  a 
disordered  shoe-tie  would  destroy  his  hero's  credit  with 
the  judicious,  and  accordingly  he  removed  all  that  was 
silly  and  natural  from  the  letters.  This  determination  to 
improve  Gray  has  marred,  also,  the  slender  thread  of 
biography  by  which  the  letters  are  linked  together,  yet  to 
a  less  degree  than  might  be  supposed,  and  the  student 
finds  himself  constantly  returning  to  Mason's  meagre  and 
slipshod  narrative  for  some  fact  which  has  been  less 
exactly  stated  by  the  far  more  careful  and  critical  Mitford. 
Mason  had  too  much  literary  ability,  and  had  known  Gray 
too  intimately  and  too  long,  to  make  his  book  other  than 
valuable.  It  is  faulty  and  unfinished,  but  it  is  a  sketch 
from   the   life.     It  appeared,  in  two  quarto  volumes,  in 


216  GRAY.  [chap. 

June  1775  and  was  received  with  great  warmth  by  the 
critics,  the  public,  and  all  but  the  intimate  friends  of 
Gray.  Mason  often  reprinted  this  book,  which  con- 
tinued to  be  a  sort  of  classic  until  Mitford  commenced  his 
investigations. 

It  has  generally  been  acknowledged  that  Johnson's  Life 
of  Gray  is  the  worst  section  in  his  delightful  series.  It 
formed  the  last  chapter  but  one  in  the  fourth  volume  of  the 
Lives  of  the  Poets,  and  was  written  when  its  author  was  tired 
of  his  task,  and  longing  to  be  at  rest  again.  It  is  barren 
and  meagre  of  fact  to  the  last  degree ;  Cole,  the  antiquary, 
gave  into  Johnson's  charge  a  collection  of  anecdotes  and 
sayings  of  Gray  which  he  had  formed  in  connexion  with 
the  poet's  Cambridge  friends,  especially  Tyson  and  Spar- 
row, but  the  lexicographer  was  disinclined  to  make  any 
use  of  them,  and  they  were  dispersed  and  lost.  We  have 
already  seen  that  these  two  great  men,  the  leading  men  of 
letters  of  their  age  in  England,  were  radically  wanting  in 
sympathy.  Gray  disliked  Johnson  personally,  apparently 
preserving  the  memory  of  some  chance  meeting  in  which  the 
Sage  had  been  painfully  self-asserting  and  oppressive ;  he 
was  himself  a  lover  of  limpid  and  easy  prose,  and  a  master 
of  the  lighter  parts  of  writing,  and  therefore  condemned  the 
style  of  Dr.  Johnson  hastily,  as  being  wholly  turgid  and 
vicious.  Yet  he  respected  his  character,  and  has  recorded 
the  fact  that  Johnson  often  went  out  in  the  streets  of 
London  with  his  pockets  full  of  silver,  and  had  given  it 
all  away  before  he  returned  home. 

Johnson's  portrait  of  Gray  is  somewhat  more  judicial  than 
this,  but  just  as  unsympathetic.  Yet  he  made  one  remark, 
after  reading  a  few  of  Gray's  letters,  which  seems  to  me  to 
surpass  in  acumen  all  the  generalities  of  Mason,  namely  that 
though  Gray  was  fastidious  and  hard  to  please,  he  was  a 


x.]  POSTHUMOUS.  217 

man  likely  to  love  much  where  he  loved  at  all.  But  for 
Gray's  poems  Johnson  had  little  but  bewilderment.  If 
they  had  not  received  the  warm  sanction  of  critics  like 
Warburton  and  Hurd,  and  the  admiration  of  such  friends 
of  his  own  as  Boswell  and  Garrick,  it  seems  likely  that 
Johnson  would  not  have  acknowledged  in  them  any  merit 
whatever.  Where  he  approves  of  them,  no  praise  could 
be  fainter ;  where  he  objects,  he  is  even  more  trenchant 
and  contemptuous  than  usual.  The  Elegy  in  a  Country 
Churchyard,  and  the  Ode  on  Adversity  are  the  only  pieces 
in  the  whole  repertory  of  Gray  to  which  he  allows  the 
tempered  eulogy  that  he  is  not  willing  to  withhold  from 
Mallet  or  Shenstone.  We  shall  probably  acquit  the  sturdy 
critic  of  any  unfairness,  even  involuntary,  when  we  per- 
ceive that  for  the  poetry  of  Collins,  who  was  his  friend  and 
the  object  of  his  benefactions,  he  has  even  less  toleration 
than  for  the  poetry  of  Gray. 

When  we  examine  Johnson's  strictures  more  exactly 
still,  we  find  that  the  inconsistency  which  usually 
accompanied  the  expression  of  his  literary  opinions 
does  not  forsake  him  here.  Even  when  Johnson  is 
on  safe  ground,  as  when  he  is  weighing  in  a  very 
careful  balance  the  Epitaphs  of  Pope,  he  is  never  a 
sure  critic  ;  he  brings  his  excellent  common  sense  to  bear 
on  the  subject  in  hand,  but  is  always  in  too  great  haste  to 
be  closing  not  to  omit  some  essential  observation.  But 
when  discussing  poetry  so  romantic  in  its  nature  as  that 
of  Gray,  he  deals  blows  even  more  at  random  than  usual. 
The  Ode  on  Adversity  meets  with  his  warmest  approbation, 
and  he  suggests  no  objection  to  its  allegorical  machinery, 
to  much  of  which  no  little  exception  might  now  be  taken. 
But  the  Eton  Ode,  with  strange  want  of  caution,  he  de- 
claims against  in  detail,  blaming  at  one  time  what  posterity 


218  GRAY.  [chap 

is  now  content  to  admire,  and  at  the  other  what  his  own 
practice  in  verse  might  have  amply  justified.  "The 
Prospect  of  Eton  College  suggests  nothing  to  Gray,  which 
every  beholder  does  not  equally  think  and  feel,"  that  is  to 
say,  which  every  susceptible  and  cultivated  beholder  does 
not  feel  in  a  certain  vein  of  reflection ;  but  this,  so  far 
from  being  a  fault,  is  the  touch  of  nature  which  makes  the 
poem  universally  interesting.  "  His  supplication  to  Father 
Thames,  to  tell  him  who  drives  the  hoop  or  tosses  the 
ball,  is  useless  and  puerile.  Father  Thames  has  no  better 
means  of  knowing  than  himself."  In  this  case,  Johnson 
was  instantly  reminded  that  Father  Nile  had  been  called 
upon  for  information  exactly  analogous  in  the  pages  of 
ftasselas.  "  His  epithet  buxom  health  is  not  elegant,"  but 
to  us  it  seems  appropriate,  which  is  better.  Finally  John- 
son finds  that  "  redolent  of  joy  and  youth  "  is  an  expres- 
sion removed  beyond  apprehension,  and  is  an  imitation 
of  a  phrase  of  Dryden's  misunderstood;  but  here  Gray 
proves  himself  the  better  scholar.  It  may  be  conjectured 
that  he  found  this  word  redolent,  of  which  he  was  parti- 
cularly fond,  among  the  old  Scots  poets  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  whom  he  was  the  first  to  unearth.  Dunbar  and 
Scot  love  to  talk  of  the  "  redolent  rose." 

The  phrases  above  quoted  constitute  Johnson's  entire 
criticism  of  the  FAon  Ode,  and  it  is  of  a  kind,  which  however 
vigorously  expressed,  would  not  now-a-days  be  considered 
competent  before  the  least  accredited  of  tribunals.  The 
examination  of  the  two  Pindaric  odes  is  conducted  on  more 
conscientious  but  not  more  sympathetic  principles.  To  the 
experiments  in  metre,  to  the  verbal  and  quantitative  felicities, 
Johnson  is  absolutely  deaf.  He  does  not  entirely  deny  merit 
to  the  poems,  but  he  contrives,  most  ingeniously,  to  hesi- 
tate contempt.  "  My  process,"  he  says,  "  has  now  brought 
me  to  the  wonderful  Wonder  of  Wonders,  the  two  Sister 


/ 


x.]  POSTHUMOUS.  219 

Odes;  by  which,  though  either  vulgar  ignorance  or 
common  sense  at  first  universally  rejected  them,  many 
have  been  since  persuaded  to  think  themselves  delighted. 
I  am  one  of  those  that  are  willing  to  be  pleased,  and  there- 
fore would  gladly  find  the  meaning  of  the  first  stanza 
of  the  Progress  of  Poetry."  Johnson,  it  is  obvious 
enough,  is  on  the  side  of  "common  sense."  The  diffi- 
culty which  he  was  pleased  to  find  in  the  opening 
stanza  of  the  ode  is  one  which  he  would  have  been  the 
first  to  denounce  as  whimsical  and  paltry  if  brought  for- 
ward by  some  other  critic.  Gray  describes  the  formation 
of  poetry  under  the  symbol  of  a  widening  river,  calm  and 
broad  in  its  pastoral  moments,  loud,  riotous  and  resonant 
when  swollen  by  passion  or  anger.  Johnson,  to  whom  the 
language  of  Greek  poetry  and  the  temper  of  Greek  thought 
were  uncongenial,  refused  to  grasp  this  direct  imagery,  and 
said  that  if  the  poet  was  speaking  of  music,  the  expression 
"  rolling  down  the  steep  amain  "  was  nonsense,  and  if  of 
water,  nothing  to  the  point.  So  good  a  scholar  should 
have  known,  and  any  biographer  should  have  noticed  that 
Gray  had  pointed  out,  that,  as  usual  in  Pindar,  whom  he  is 
here  closely  paraphrasing,  the  subject  and  simile  are  united. 
Johnson  was  careless  enough  to  blame  Gray  for  inventing 
the  compound  adjective  velvet-green,  although  Pope  and 
Young,  poets  after  Johnson's  own  heart,  had  previously 
used  it.  The  rest  of  his  criticism  is  equally  faulty,  and 
from  the  same  causes,  —  haste,  and  want  of  sympathy. 

Johnson's  attack  did  nothing  at  first  to  injure  Gray's 
position  as  a  poet.  Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in 
the  process  of  time,  the  great  popularity  of  the  Lives  of 
the  Poets,  and  the  oblivion  into  which  Mason's  life  has 
fallen,  have  done  something  sensibly  to  injure  Gray  with 
the  unthinking.  Even  in  point  of  history  the  life  of 
Gray  is  culpably  full  of  errors,  and  might  as  well  have 


220  GEA.Y.  [chap. 

been  written  if  Mason's  laborious  work  had  never  been 
published.  There  is,  however,  one  point  on  which  John- 
son did  early  justice  to  Gray,  and  that  is  in  commending 
the  picturesque  grace  of  his  descriptions  of  the  country. 
Against  the  condemnation  of  Johnson,  there  were  placed, 
almost  instantly,  the  enthusiastic  praises  of  Adam  Smith, 
Gibbon,  Hume,  Mackintosh,  and  others  of  no  less  autho- 
rity, who  were  unanimous  in  ranking  his  poetry  only  just 
below  that  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton.  This  view  con- 
tinued until  the  splendours  of  the  neo-romantic  school, 
especially  the  reputations  of  Wordsworth  and  Byron, 
reduced  the  luminary  and  deprived  it  of  its  excess  of  light. 
The  Lake  School,  particularly  Coleridge,  professed  that 
Gray  had  been  unfairly  over-rated,  and  it  was  rather  Byron 
and  Shelley  who  sustained  his  fame,  as  in  some  directions 
they  continued  his  tradition. 

It  would  be  to  leave  this  little  memoir  imperfect  if  we 
did  not  follow  the  destinies  of  that  group  of  intimate 
friends  who  survived  the  poet,  and  whose  names  are  in- 
dissolubly  connected  with  his.  The  one  who  died  first 
was  Lord  Strathmore,  who  passed  away,  prematurely,  in 
1776.  James  Brown  continued  to  hold  the  mastership  of 
Pembroke,  and  to  enjoy  the  reputation  of  a  gentle  and 
good-natured  old  man  until  1784,  when  he  followed  his 
friend  to  the  grave.  Young  men  of  letters,  such  as  Sir 
Egerton  Brydges,  considered  it  a  privilege  to  be  asked  to 
the  Master's  Lodge,  and  to  take  tea  with  the  man  in  whose 
arms  Gray  breathed  his  last,  although  Brown  had  no  great 
power  of  reminiscence,  and  had  not  much  to  tell  such 
eager  questioners.  Of  himself  it  was  told  that  his  ways 
were  so  extremely  punctilious  as  to  amuse  Gray,  himself  a 
very  regular  man,  and  that  once,  when  the  friends  were 
going  to  start  together  at  a  certain  hour,  and  the  time  had 
just   arrived,  Brown  rose  and  began  to  walk  to  and  fro, 


x.]  POSTHUMOUS.  221 

whereupon  Gray  exclaimed,  "Look  at  Brown,  he  is  going 
to  strike  ! "  Dr.  Thomas  Wharton  (who  must  never  be 
confounded  with  Thomas  Warton,  the  poet-laureate)  con- 
tinued to  live  at  his  house  at  Old  Park,  Durham,  where 
Gray  had  so  often  spent  delightful  weeks.  He  died  in 
1794  at  a  great  age,  and  left  his  ample  correspondence 
with  Gray  to  his  second  son,  a  man  of  some  literary  pre- 
tensions, of  whom  Sir  Egerton  Brydges  has  given  an  in- 
teresting account.  Mason  and  Walpole,  whose  careers  are 
too  well  known  to  be  dwelt  upon  here,  survived  their  cele- 
brated friend  by  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Horace 
Walpole  died  on  March  2,  and  Mason  on  April  4,  1797. 

At  the  close  of  the  century  several  of  Gray's  early 
friends  still  survived.  The  Rev.  William  Robinson, 
having  reached  the  age  of  seventy-six,  died  in  December 
1803.  On  his  tomb  in  the  church  of  Monk's  Horton,  in 
Kent,  it  was  stated  that  he  was  "  especially  intimate  with 
the  poet  Gray,"  with  whom  he  probably  became  acquainted 
through  the  accident  that  his  mother,  after  his  father's 
death,  made  Dr.  Conyers  Middleton  her  second  husband. 
His  sister  was  the  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Montagu  who  wrote  the 
Essay  on  Shakespeare  and  who  patronized  Dr.  Johnson. 
The  kind  and  faithful  Stonehewer  died  at  a  very  ad- 
vanced age  in  1809,  bequeathing  to  Pembroke  Hall  those 
commonplace-books  of  Gray's  from  which  Mathias  reaped 
his  bulky  volumes,  and  yet  left  much  for  me  to  glean. 
Norton  Nicholls  died  rector  of  Lound  and  Bradwell  in 
Suffolk,  on  the  22nd  of  November,  in  the  same  year,  1809, 
having  fortunately  placed  on  paper,  four  years  before,  his 
exquisite  reminiscences  of  Gray.  He  also  bears  on  his 
memorial  tablet,  in  Richmond  Church,  his  claim  to  the 
regard  of  posterity :  "He  was  the  friend  of  the  illustrious 
Gray." 

The   most    remarkable,    certainly    the    most    original, 


222  GRAY.  [chap. 

of  Gray's  friends,  was  also  the  most  long-lived.  Charles 
Victor  de  Bonstetten  had  but  just  begun  his  busy  and 
eccentric  career  when  he  crossed  the  orbit  of  Gray.  He 
lived  not  merely  to  converse  with  Byron  but  to  survive 
him,  and  to  see  a  new  age  of  literature  inaugurated.  He 
was  a  copious  writer,  and  his  works  enjoyed  a  certain 
vogue.  His  well-known  description  of  Gray  occurs  in  a 
book  of  studies  published  in  1831,  the  year  before  he 
died,  Les  Souvenirs  du  Chevalier  de  Bonstetten.  In  the 
most  chatty  of  his  books,  V Homme  du  Midi  et  Vhomme 
du  Nord,  he  says  that  he  found  in  England  that  friendship 
of  the  most  intimate  kind  could  subsist  between  persons 
who  were  satisfied  to  remain  absolutely  silent  in  one 
another's  presence ;  there  may  be  a  touch  of  the  reserve 
of  Gray  in  this  vague  allusion. 

In  Bonstetten  the  romantic  seed  which  Gray  may 
be  supposed  to  have  sown,  burst  into  extravagant 
blossom.  His  conduct  in  private  life  seems,  from 
what  can  be  gathered,  to  have  been  founded  on  a 
perusal  of  La  Nouvelle  Heloise,  and  though  he  was 
a  pleasant  little  fat  man,  with  rosy  cheeks,  his  con- 
duct was  hardly  up  to  the  standard  which  Gray  would 
have  approved  of.  Bonstetten  may  perhaps  be  described 
as  a  smaller  Benjamin  Constant ;  like  him,  he  was  Swiss 
by  birth,  first  roused  to  intellectual  interest  in  England, 
and  finally  sentimentalized  in  Germany ;  but  he  was  not 
quite  capable  of  writing  Adolphe.  Bonstetten  followed 
Gray  in  studying  the  Scandinavian  tongues ;  he  acquainted 
himself  with  Icelandic,  and  wrote  copiously,  though  not  very 
wisely,  on  the  Eddas.  He  brought  out  a  German  edition 
of  his  works  at  Copenhagen,  where  he  spent  some  time, 
and  whither  he  pursued  his  eccentric  friend  Matthison. 
Bonstetten  died  at  Genoa  in  February,  1832,  at  the  age  of 
eighty-seven.      The   last   survivor   among   people  whom 


x.]  POSTHUMOUS.  223 

Gray  knew  was  probably  the  Earl  of  Burlington,  "  little 
brother  George,"  who  died  in  1834.  Perhaps  the  last  person 
who  was  certainly  in  Gray's  presence  was  Sir  Samuel 
Egerton  Brydges,  who  was  present,  at  the  age  of  three,  at 
a  wedding  at  which  Gray  assisted,  and  who  died  in  1837. 
Gray  was  rather  short  in  stature,  of  graceful  build  in 
early  life,  but  too  plump  in  later  years.  He  walked  in  a 
wavering  and  gingerly  manner,  the  result  probably  of  weak- 
ness. Besides  the  portraits  already  described  in  the  body 
of  this  memoir,  there  is  a  painting  at  Pembroke  Hall  by 
Benjamin  Wilson,  F.R.S.,  a  versatile  artist  whose  work 
was  at  one  time  considered  equal  to  that  of  Hogarth. 
This  portrait  is  in  profile  j  it  was  evidently  painted 
towards  the  close  of  the  poet's  life  ;  the  cheeks  are  puffed, 
and  the  lips  have  fallen  inwards  through  lack  of  teeth. 
Gray  is  also  stated  to  have  sat  to  one  of  the  Vanderguchts, 
but  this  portrait  seems  to  have  disappeared.  In  1778 
Mason  commissioned  the  famous  sculptor  John  Bacon,  who 
was  just  then  executing  various  works  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  to  carve  the  medallion  now  existing  in  Poet's 
Corner  j  as  Bacon  had  never  seen  Gray,  Mason  lent  him 
a  profile  drawing  by  himself,  the  original  of  which,  a 
hideous  little  work,  is  now  preserved  at  Pembroke.  A 
bust  of  Gray,  by  Behnes,  founded  on  the  full-face  portrait 
by  Eckhardt,  stands  with  those  of  other  famous  scholars, 
in  Upper  School  at  Eton. 

In  1776,  according  to  a  College  Order  which  Mr.  J. 
W.  Clark  has  kindly  copied  for  me,  "James  Brown, 
Master,  and  William  Mason,  Fellow,  each  gave  fifty 
pounds  to  establish  a  building  fund  in  memory  of 
Thomas  Gray  the  Poet,  who  had  long  resided  in  the 
College."  The  fund  so  started  gradually  accumulated 
until  it  amounted  to  a  very  large  sum.  Certain  alterations 
were  made,  but  nothing  serious  was  attempted  until,  about 


224  GRAY.  [chap.  x. 

thirty  years  ago,  Mr.  Cory,  a  fellow  of  Emmanuel  College, 
took  down  the  Christopher  Wren  doorway  to  the  hall,  and 
attempted  to  harmonise  the  whole  structure  to  Gothic. 
Still  the  Gray  Building  Fund  was  accumulating,  and  the 
college  was  becoming  less  and  less  able  to  accommodate 
its  inmates.  It  was  determined  at  last  to  carry  out  the 
scheme  proposed  nearly  a  century  before  by  Brown  and 
Mason.  In  March  1870,  the  work  was  put  into  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Alfred  Waterhouse.  He  was  at  work  on 
the  college  until  1879,  and  in  his  hands  if  it  is  no  longer 
picturesque  it  is  thoroughly  comfortable  and  habitable. 

In  all  this  vast  expenditure  of  money,  not  one  penny 
was  spent,  until  quite  lately,  in  commemoration  of  the 
man  in  whose  name  it  was  collected.  At  Peterhouse, 
when  the  College  Hall  was  restored  in  1870,  a  stained 
glass  window,  drawn  by  Mr.  F.  Madox  Brown  and 
executed  by  Mr.  William  Morris,  was  presented  by  Mr. 
A.  H.  Hunt.  At  Pembroke  a  still  more  fitting  memorial 
was  erected  on  the  26th  of  May  1885,  when  a  marble 
bust  by  Mr.  Hamo  Thornycroft,  A.R.A.,  was  unveiled 
by  Lord  Houghton  in  the  College  Hall  in  the  presence 
of  a  very  distinguished  audience.  Mr.  Lowell  and  Sir 
Frederick  Leighton,  among  others,  gave  eloquent  testi- 
mony on  that  occasion  to  the  lasting  esteem  in  which 
the  memory  of  Gray  is  held  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 


APPENDIX 

It  was  not  known  until  the  Dillon  MSS.  passed  through  iny 
hands  in  1884  that  in  August  1764,  about  a  month  after 
the  surgical  operation  which  is  described  on  p.  165,  Gray 
went  to  Netherby,  on  the  Scotch  border,  to  visit  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Graham,  the  horticulturist,  and  from  his  house  set 
out  on  a  tour  through  Scotland.  His  route  took  him  by 
Annan  and  Dumfries  to  the  Falls  of  the  Clyde  and  Lanark. 
At  Glasgow  he  visited  Foulis,the  publisher,  from  whom  he  after- 
wards received  many  courtesies.  He  admired  Foulis'  academy 
of  painting  and  sculpture,  and  lamented  that  the  Cathedral  of 
Glasgow  had  fallen  so  much  out  of  repair.  He  passed  on  to 
Loch  Lomond,  sailed  on  the  loch,  and  returned  to  Glasgow 
by  Dumbarton.  At  Stirling  he  enjoyed  the  view  from  the 
Castle,  and  went  on  by  Falkirk  and  the  coast  to  Edinburgh. 
He  took  excursions  to  Hawthornden  and  Roslin,  and  thence 
to  Melrose.  He  was  next  at  Kelso,  Tweedmouth,  and 
Norham  Castle.  He  made  an  excursion  at  low  tide  to  Holy 
Island,  and  the  journal  closes  at  Bamborough  Castle,  from 
which  place  he  went,  no  doubt,  to  his  customary  haunt,  Dr. 
Wharton's  house  at  Old  Park,  in  the  county  of  Durham. 
This  was  Gray's  first  visit  to  Scotland. 


INDEX. 


Adversity ',  Ode  on,  217 
Agrippina,  48-51 
Akenside,  51,  76,  115,  136 
Alcaic  Ode,  31,  44 
Algarotti,  Count  Francesco,  158  seq. 
A  lliance  of  Education  and  Govern- 
ment, The,  91 
Anecdotes,  125,  194,  212 
An  Evening  Contemplation,  105 
Annus  Mirabilis  (Dryden's),  98 
Antrobus,  Miss  Dorothy,  2 
Antrobus,  Miss  Mary,  206,  207 
Antrobus,  Robert,  2,  3 
Antrobus,  Thomas,  2,  3,  18 
Architectura  Oothica,  115 
Armstrong,  51,  76 
Arnold,  Matthew,  51,  118,  189 
Art  of  Preserving  Health  (Arm- 
strong's), 76 
Ashton,  Thomas,  5,  74 

Bacon,  John  (sculptor),  223 
Bard,  The,  122  seq.,  127,  129  seq. ; 

its     sublimity    and     pomp     of 

vision,  130  ;    its  scheme,  131  ; 

its    criticism   and    force,    132  ; 

specimen  of,  132  ;  its  excess  of 

allegory,  132,  133 
Beattie,  1,  171,  176,  203 
Bentley,  Richard,  19,  72,  107 
Bonstetten,  Charles  Victor  de,  195 

seq.,  202 
Book  of  Thel  (Blake's),  130 
Borrowdale,  Gray's  description  of, 

187 


Boswell,  211,  217 

British  Museum,  Gray  in  the, 
141-143 

Brown,  Dr.  James,  70,  81,  90, 
140,  154,  201,  205,  206  seq.t 
210,  220,  223 

Brydges,  Sir  Egerton,  220,  221, 
223 

Burlington,  Earl  of,  223 

Burney,  Dr.,  183 

Burnham  Beeches,  Gray's  descrip- 
tion of,  16 

Byron,  220,  222 

Candidate,  The,  166 
Caractacus  (Mason's),  127 
Caradoc,  160 
Castle  of  Indolence  (Thomson's), 

51 
Castle  of  Otranto  (Walpole's),  169 
Catalogue  of  Antiquities,  Houses, 

etc.,  138 
Cavendish,  Lord  John,  134,  137 
Chute,  Mr.,  44,  75,  77,  82,  85,  123 
Clarke,  Dr.,  5,  133-134 
Cobham,  Lady,  100  seq.,  135, 144, 

146 
Cole,  193,  216 
Coleridge,  220 
Comyns,    Mrs.    Dorothy    (Gray's 

niece),  206 
Congreve,  118,  212 
Conon,  160 
Coventry,  Henry,  11 
Crebillon,  25  seq. 


227 


228 


GRAY. 


Critical  Review,  on  the  Pindaric 

Odes,  135 
Criticisms    on    Architecture    and 

Painting  in  Italy,  35 
Cumberland    scenery,    Gray    the 

"  discoverer  "  of,  185 

Death  of  Hoel,  The,  160 

Delaval,  Mr.,  154 

Be  Principiis  Cogitandi,  40,  77 

Descent  of  Odin,  The,  160  seq. 

Deserted  Village  (Goldsmith's), 
201 

Discourse  on  the  Pindarique  Ode 
(Congreve's),  118 

Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College, 
60,  78 

Double  Falsehood,  The  (Theo- 
bald's), 52 

Dryden,  19,  98 

Dyer,  51,  136 

Eckhardt,  John  Giles,  78,  223 

Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard, 
45,  65,  96,  145,  202,  217  ;  its 
widespread  influence,  97  ;  a 
typical  English  poem,  97  ;  its 
popularity  and  vitality,  98  ;  its 
form,  98,  99  ;  history  of  its 
composition,  100  seq.  ;  its 
authorised  and  pirated  editions, 
104  ;  parodies  of  it,  105 

English  Garden,  2%e(Mason's),  213 

Eton,  3,  4 

Eton  Ode,  60  seq. 

Fasti  Hellenici  (Clinton's),  82 
Fatal  Sisters,  The,  160 
Fleece,  The  (Dyer's),  51,  136 
Friend,  To  a  (Mason's),  128 

Garrick,  135,  139,  149,  193,  217 
Gibbon,  91,  195,  220 
Goldsmith,  135,  153,  201 
Grafton,  Duke  of,  180,  181,  182, 

204 
Gray,  Baron,  1 
Gray,  Mrs.  (mother),  2  seq.,  9,  112 


Gray,  Philip  (father),  2,  9,  10,  46 
Gray,  Thomas,  parentage  and 
family  history,  1-3  ;  goes  to 
Eton,  4  ;  beginning  of  his 
friendship  with  Horace  Wal- 
pole,  4  ;  goes  to  Cambridge,  8  ; 
his  first  appearance  in  print,  11; 
his  inclination  to  melancholy, 
13  ;  stays  at  Burnham  with  his 
uncle,  16 ;  leaves  Cambridge, 
22  ;  goes  with  Horace  Walpole 
on  the  grand  tour,  22 ;  his 
arrival  in  Paris,  24  ;  goes  to 
Rome,  37  ;  his  quarrel  with 
Walpole,  42  ;  death  of  his 
father,  47  ;  studies  Common 
Law,  47  ;  goes  to  Stoke- Pogis, 
55  ;  returns  to  Cambridge,  67  ; 
is  reconciled  to  Walpole,  74  ; 
makes  the  acquaintance  of 
William  Mason,  86  ;  writes  the 
Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard, 
97  ;  superintends  an  illustrated 
edition  of  his  poems,  108  ;  his 
mother's  illness  and  death,  111- 
112 ;  writes  the  first  of  the 
Pindaric  Odes,  117  ;  completes 
the  first  part  of  The  Bard,  122  ; 
becomes  a  chronic  invalid,  123  ; 
moves  from  Peterhouse  to  Pem- 
broke, 126  ;  finishes  The  Bard, 
129 ;  publishes  the  Pindaric 
Odes,  134 ;  receives  the  only 
money  he  ever  gained  by  litera- 
ture, 135 ;  refuses  the  poet- 
laureateship,  137  ;  goes  on  an 
architectural  tour  in  the  Fen 
country,  139  ;  goes  to  live  in 
London,  140 ;  works  at  the 
British  Museum,  143  ;  his  suf- 
ferings from  gout,  144  ;  he 
witnesses  the  coronation  of 
George  III.,  154  ;  makes  the 
acquaintance  of  the  Rev.  Norton 
Nicholls,  155  ;  paraphrases  Ice- 
landic and  Gaelic  poems,  160  ; 
sets  out  on  his  "Lilliputian 
travels,"  167 ;  is  threatened 
with  blindness,  169;  visits  Scot- 


INDEX. 


229 


land,  171  ;  is  appointed  to  the 
chair  of  Modern  Literature  and 
Modern  Languages  in  Cambridge 
University,  180  ;  writes  the 
Installation  Ode,  183;  "dis- 
covers "  and  describes  the  Lake 
scenery,  185  ;  returns  to  Cam- 
bridge, 191 ;  his  meeting  and 
intercourse  with  Charles  Victor 
de  Bonstetten,  196  seq.  ;  goes 
on  a  tour  with  Nicholls  through 
the  Midlands  and  South  Wales, 
200  ;  his  declining  health,  202 ; 
returns  to  Cambridge,  205 ;  dies 
from  an  attack  of  gout,  206  ; 
his  funeral,  207 

Characteristics :  various  de- 
scriptions of  him,  3,  109,  194, 
223  ;  shy  and  studious  nature, 
8  ;  melancholy  disposition,  13, 
20,  53,  67  ;  neglect  of  bodily 
exercise,  14,  20;  his  detestation 
of  mathematics,  19  ;  love  of 
music,  36,  37,  77,  127,  129; 
temper,  43;  ill -health,  123, 
164,  204  ;  horror  of  fire,  124, 
181  ;  love  of  flowers,  143,  159  ; 
nervous  condition,  147  ;  stout- 
ness, 156  ;  spirit  of  independ- 
ence, 157-158  ;  abstemiousness, 
165  ;  neatness,  189 

As  a  writer  :  a  genuine  lyrist, 
58 ;  his  employment  of  allegory, 
63,  64,  132  ;  perfection  of 
structure  in  his  lyrical  works, 
118-119  ;  his  rhyming  manner, 
121  ;  contemporary  estimate  of 
his  poems,  219-220 

Green,  Matthew,  17 

Grignion,  Charles,  110 

Halifax,  Lord,  61 

Hammond,  James,  99 

Heberden,  Dr.  William,  86 

Hellas  (Shelley's),  121 

Hempstead,  Stephen  (Gray's  ser- 
vant), 182,  207 

Hervey,  Frederic,  Earl  of  Bristol, 
176 


Holdernesse,  Lord,  24 

Hume,  David,  41,  150,  194,  203, 

220 
Hurd,  Eichard,  70,  72,  135,  138, 

150,  164,  217 
Hymeneals,  11 
Hymn  to  Adversity,  63 
Hymn  to  Ignorance,  69,  89 

Installation  Ode,  183  ;  not  one  of 
Gray's  happiest  efforts,  184  ;  its 
allegorical  style,  184  ;  specimen 
of,  184  ;  the  last  known  poem 
of  Gray,  185 

Isola,  Agostino,  181 

Johnson,   Samuel,  51,  136,  199, 

211,  216,  218,  221 
Joseph  Andrews,   Gray's   opinion 

of,  49 
Jubilee  Ode  (Garrick's),  193 

Keats,  119 

Keene,    Dr.  Edmund   (Bishop   of 

Ely),  94 
Keswick,  Gray  at,  186 
Knight,  Dr.  Gawin,  142 

Lake  School,  the,  and  Gray's  rank 

as  a  poet,  220 
V Esprit  des  Lois  (Montesquieu's), 

92 
Letters  (Gray's),   16,  17,  24,  28, 

29,  32,  38,  43,  53,  79,  95,  137, 

168,  173,   175,  183,  185,  187, 

189,  197,  203 
V Homme  du  Midi  et  V  Homme  du 

Nord  (Bonstetten's),  222 
Liberty  of  Genius,  The,  121 
Lives   of  the    Poets   (Johnson's), 

Gray  in,  216 
London  Magazine,  tribute  to  Gray, 

211 
Long,  Dr.  Roger,  69,  81,  86,  166, 

201 
Long  Story,  55,  100  seq. 
Love  Elegies  (Hammond's),  99 
Luna  Habitabilis,  12 


230 


GRAY. 


Macpherson  ("  Ossian"),  149 

Magazine  of  Magazines,  103 

Mann,  Sir  Horace,  34 

Manon  Lescaut  (Prevot-d'Exiles'), 
24 

Marriage  d  la  Mode  (Hogarth's),  78 

Mason,  Rev.  William,  10,  11,  12, 
43,  68,  73,  86,  105,  114,  122, 
127,  137  sea.,  151,  156,  170, 
175,  177,  185,  200,  204,  206 
seq.,  221,  223 

Mathias,  74,  115,  193,  221 

Meleager,  73 

Metre,  studies  on,  151 

Middleton,  Dr.  Conyers,  70,  71, 
105,  221 

Middleton,  Mrs.  Conyers,  74 

Milton,  118,  220 

Minstrel,  The  (Beattie's),  176 

Mitford,  211,  215 

Montagu,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  173,  221 

Montesquieu,  92 

Monthly  Review,  135,  148 

Miiller,  John  Sebastian,  110 

Musce  Etonenses,  12 

Netley  Abbey,  Gray's  description 

of,  168 
Newcastle,  Duke  of,  90,  159 
Nicholls,  Kev.    Norton,  155,  159 

seq.,  167,   173,  178,  185,  194, 

195  seq.,   199,  200,   202,  208, 

210,  215,  221 
Night  Thoughts  (Young's),  50 
Noon-Tide  :  An  Ode,  56 
Nosce  Teipsum  (Sir  John  Davies's), 

98 

Obermann,  189 

Odes  (Collins's),  78,  83,  130 

Oline,  Mrs.   (Gray's  aunt),  2,  85, 

185,  201,  202 
Oroonoko  (Southerne's),  17 
"Orosmades,"   Gray's  nick- name, 

11 
Ossian,  149-150 

Palace  of  Honour  (Douglas's),  151 
Palgrave("01dPa"),  199 


Pamela  (Richardson's),  27 

Paradisi,  Agostino,  158 

Patriot  King  (Pope's),  76 

Pembroke  Hall  (Cambridge),  6,  8, 
18,  37,  68,  69,  70,  73,  82,  83, 
94,  104, 107,  116, 126, 166, 181, 
223,  224 

Penrith,  Gray  at,  185,  186 

Pergolesi,  G.,  13,  36,  127 

Persian  Eclogues  (Collins's),  51 

Peterhouse  (Cambridge),  8,  67,  68, 
94,  125,  155,  224 

Pindaric  Odes,  117,  134  ;  poems 
for  poets,  117  ;  construction  and 
form,  118  ;  publication  and  suc- 
cess, 135 

Poet-laureateship,  Gray  on  the, 
137 

Poetry  of  John  Lydgate,  151 

Pope,  50,  75,  217 

Potter,  Robert,  on  Gray,  212 

Prevot-d'Exiles  (Abbe),  24 

Principles  of  Human  Knowledge 
(Berkeley's),  41 

Progress  of  Poesy,  The,  117  seq., 
130  ;  its  natural  evolution,  118- 
119  ;  analysis  of,  120,  121  ;  the 
force  and  ringing  music  of  its 
rhyme,  121 

Quinault,  Mdlle.  Jeanne,  24,  81 

Ramsay,  Allan,  51 
Richardson,  Samuel,  27 
Robinson,  Rev.  William,  173.  204, 

210,  221 
Robison,  Professor,  145 

Sandby,  Paul,  151 
Sandwich,  Lord,  61,  166,  179 
Satire  upon  the  Heads,  167 
Saunderson,  Professor  Nicholas,  18 
Selwyn,  George,  30 
Shelley,  35,  119,  121,  220 
Shenstone,  5,  51,   105,  136,  201, 

217 
Smart,  Christopher,  88  seq.,  136 
Smith,  Adam,  150,  220 
Southerne,  Thomas,  17 


INDEX. 


231 


Souvenirs  da  Chevalier  de  Bon- 

stetten,  222 
Speed,    Miss   Harriet,    100,    101, 

109,  135,  144,  146  seq.,  172 
Spleen,  The  (Greene's),  17 
Spring,  Ode  to,  56 
Sterne,  146 

Stillingfleet,  Benjamin,  146 
Stoke-Pogis,   46,   54   seq.,   61,   65 

seq.,  77,  82,  96,  100,  111,  113, 

123,  139  seq.,  144 
Stonehewer,  5,  112, 125, 181,  206, 

210,  221 
Strathmore,  Lord,  122,  171,  176, 

220 
Stuarts,  Gray's  hatred  of  the,  39 
Swift,  50 
Swinburne,  Mr.,  on  the  Elegy,  98 

Temple,   Rev.   W.    J.,  tribute   to 

Gray,  211 
Thebaid,   Gray's  translation  of  a 

portion  of  the,  14 
Theobald,  52 
Thomson,  51,  136 
Tophet,  166 


Tour  down  the  Wye  (Gilpin's),  205 
Tour  in  the  Lakes,  185 
Triumphs  of  (hoen,  The,  160 

Vicissitude,  Ode  on,  114 
Voltaire,  202  seq. 

Walpole,  Horace,  3,  7, 10  seq.,  22, 
32,  36,  42,  43,  74,  77,  85,  97, 
100,  103,  122,  134,  164,  169, 
194,  204,  214,  221 

Warburton,  135,  164,  217 

West,  Richard,  4,  8,  11,  20,  47, 
48,  214 

Wharton,  Dr.  Thomas,  37,  69,  76, 
82,  84,  85,  92,  106,  112,  117, 
139,  157,  165,  186,  195,  203, 
204,  205,  208,  210,  214,  221 

Whithead,  44,  75,  82,  85 

Wilson,  Benjamin,  portrait  of 
Gray  by,  223 

Wolfe,  General,  and  Gray's  Elegy, 
145 

Wordsworth,  60,  185,  186 

Young,  50,  136 


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